


Beyond The Archetype

by ButcherOfBlackwater



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, OC insert, Violence, fanfiction tropes, seriously all of the tropes, woke up in a tv show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 49,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23898433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButcherOfBlackwater/pseuds/ButcherOfBlackwater
Summary: An average night takes a turn for the worse for threeGame of Thronesfans, as they’re killed just before starting a rewatch of their favorite show. That should be the worst possible thing, until they wake up in a different reality where dying again is likely to happen sooner rather than later. Now if only they can survive long enough to change the awful ending they know is coming.
Relationships: Archer Forrester (OMC)/Robb Stark, Callianna Banefort (OFC)/Erich Baratheon (OMC), Siobhan Pyne (OFC)/Daario Naharis
Comments: 13
Kudos: 6





	1. Part I - Chapter I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fortunately for her, darkness swarmed her before her fingertips could make contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve toyed with this idea ever since watching the last season, but I never thought I would post it. Isolation has given me too much free time though, so I’ve gone through and cleaned up my original chapters. I have some of this story pre-written, and the chapters do get a little long. While the characters take this story seriously, I don’t. I’m writing this for fun, so there’s guaranteed mistakes. If you see something wrong, please tell me so that I can fix it. Other than that, I hope you enjoy reading this because I’ve been enjoying writing it.
> 
> There are going to be quite a few original characters, because this is a “characters from the real world wake up in a fantasy world/television show” type story. I do have face claims for my more important original characters, and I’m going to share them for readers who like visuals.
> 
> Calli: Freya Mavor  
> Archer: Alex Høgh Andersen  
> Siobhan: Sophie Skelton  
> Ivan: Mads Mikkelsen

##  **PART I  
** THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

**CHAPTER I  
DEATH IS NOT THE END** ****

**CALLI**

“What the fuck is that?” The voice cut through the air somewhere behind Calli’s left shoulder, and she looked up just in time to see Archer tense up in the middle of bending over and twist his upper body around so that he could look past the couch that Calli was sitting on. A heartbeat later, hands gripped the back of the couch as Siobhan braced herself so that she could lean forward to look at the now grinning Archer.

“What’s it look like?” Archer questioned. There was a sound deep in the bottom of Siobhan’s throat, a dark sound like a memory of a growl, and Calli pulled her legs in tighter against her body.

What was making her so poetic today? Memory of a growl? It had to be the pain messing with her thoughts. She had been fighting off a headache all day, and she thought a lazy night at the gym would soothe her nerves. For nearly the past decade, the small gym had been her safe place. Even at twenty-three and living on her own, the gym was still the place she escaped to when she needed a break. The owner knew her, knew all of them, which was why they were allowed inside after closing hours. It looked like tonight wasn’t going to be a getaway night though. It was going to be a night of Calli stopping Siobhan from killing Archer. Which, in all fairness, wasn’t an uncommon thing on any given night. Stopping her best friend from enacting violence on the younger teenager that she was responsible for wasn’t her idea of a good time, and her stomach rolled as the pain in her head increased.

“We agreed. No rewatch until Christmas.” Siobhan’s voice was low, rough as gravel, and Calli’s eyes narrowed on her pinched expression. Out of the three of them, Siobhan was the one with cutting words and fierce glares. She wasn’t usually quick to anger though, and she somehow always managed to keep her composure when angry. When she did show actual anger, it meant she had been pushed past her limit. The tight expression and rough tone were classic signs of Siobhan starting to lose control, which shouldn’t be happening. Not on this scale and not this fast. No matter how much Archer’s lazy impish personality bothered her at times.

“It’s close enough,” Archer said and shrugged. It looked difficult to do while bent over, but Archer managed the gesture with ease and then opened the old DVD player.

“It’s only March! Take it out!” The DVD tray closed with a quiet _click_ , and Calli kept quiet as Siobhan’s knuckles popped white. Not because she was afraid of Siobhan, but because Archer had straightened up to his full height and his ever present smile was missing as he turned to face towards Siobhan. Archer without a smile or a playful presence and Siobhan’s calm anger replaced with barely suppressed rage? None of this was right. Nothing felt right. She didn’t even feel right.

“I have felt like absolute shit all day, and it cheers me up so we are watching it.” Archer’s usually light tone had dropped into a hoarse monotone, and Calli’s temples pounded hotly as Siobhan stalked around the side of the couch and moved towards Archer.

As the only two people that she had ever called friends started to argue in earnest, Calli shifted on the couch until her bare feet were flat on the floor. Her elbows instantly dropped to her knees so that her hands could cradle her aching head, and her head started to pound so much that she could barely even hear Siobhan and Archer yelling. Now was the time for her to step in, to stop them before they could start physically fighting. They didn’t spend so much time at the gym because they enjoyed the stench of stale sweat; each of them had been taught to fight, both properly and dirty. Siobhan had been training at the gym for years now, and Archer was younger than them but had a steep learning curve when it came to fighting. If their tempers got the better of them, they could really do some damage to each other. So she needed to push past the pulsing headache and separate them. Now.

Calli slowly lifted her head, ignored the tight heat surrounding her eyes, and locked her jaw before taking in a deep breath. Before she could force herself to her feet, something wrapped around the middle of her braid. It had to be a hand locked around her hair that pulled her upwards, pulled her up and backwards, and her legs kicked out as she was pulled over the back of the couch. Before her feet could touch the floor behind the couch, cold heat pierced her stomach. Once, twice, three times…and then she was screaming and truly fighting to get free. Sound came back in a rush, she could hear Siobhan and Archer fighting against people that she couldn’t see because her hair was still in a tight grip and pulled back so much that she could only see the dull lights overhead. She’d been stabbed, the pain in her stomach came from being stabbed, and she reached for the sword on her hip.

_“Sword?”_ Her fevered mind even made her think that she could feel something solid in her palm, something real and tangible like she was gripping the handle of a sword, as the man behind her hissed words she couldn’t hear against her ear.

“Is that all you’ve got?!” Archer yelled. The sound of his voice pulled Calli from her mind, and her eyes focused on the scene in front of her. Two men were fighting against Siobhan, but it didn’t look like either of them had knives and Siobhan was holding her own against them. In front of Archer, a man was kneeling on the floor and cupping between his legs. When Archer noticed a different man coming towards him, he kicked the kneeling man in the face with such force that the back of his head audibly cracked against the floor before he fell still.

“You and your friends are going to die here tonight,” the man behind her said against her ear. Archer had his arms raised to block the knife strikes, and his leather boots were slipping in the blood on the floor. Siobhan had beaten one man badly enough that he was on the ground, but the other man didn’t even look winded as his large fists started landing more hits.

“Are you sure about that?” Calli asked. She was bleeding too fast, she could smell the thick coppery scent of her own blood, and she wasn’t even surprised when a sharp knife pressed against her throat. It was a bit of a cliché, but it was also extremely effective. One wrong move and she was dead.

“I’m sure about that. The boys are just playing with them now.” The voice in her ear was familiar, but she couldn’t focus on remembering why it was familiar when she realized that he was right. Archer was moving slowly, and Calli couldn’t even see his arms anymore under all the blood. On the other side of the room, Siobhan’s shirt was covered in blood from some wound that Calli couldn’t see but was still on her feet with her fists up.

“What are we dying for?” Calli asked. Archer ducked the next swipe instead of blocking it and didn’t rise after dropping onto a knee, while Siobhan was completely kneeling with a man’s hands locked around her throat. She didn’t recognize the men, so why were they dying? “Let me guess. You figured out that Jonesy doesn’t trust banks and has all his money here?”

“That’s just a bonus.” The sharp edge of the knife bit into her throat, and she didn’t know if the warm sensation she felt running down between her collarbones was real or just in her mind. “You’re going to die for one simple reason. I don’t like you.”

The low voice finally clicked, and Calli’s eyes squeezed shut even as her tense body suddenly relaxed. She was going to die because some idiot man had goaded her into a fight. He had laughed when he saw her fighting in the ring, had said her opponent was going easy on her, and had kept at it until she’d told him to join her instead. He’d gotten into the ring, fully expecting her to be weak and easy to beat, and she had proved him wrong. It didn’t matter that that she was slim, or that she was a woman. She was slim from a childhood of living on scraps but had been slowly changing malnourishment into strength over the past several years, and her gender had absolutely nothing to do with her fighting ability. She had wiped the floor with the man to the applause of the others in the gym, and she could remember the hateful look in his eyes before he’d left the ring and then quickly left the gym.

“You only want to kill me because you’re weak.” She could feel him tensing behind her, which wasn’t a good thing but she hadn’t been able to stop her words, and she reached up to grip his wrist. Her feet slid in her blood as she held his wrist as tightly as she could and forced her body to the side, out of his hold, and the knife cut deeper against the front of her throat.

It was the blood that caused her to slide instead of getting farther away, or maybe it was the blood loss. Something caused her to falter, and that moment was all he needed. He moved after her, sweeping the knife upwards as he did, and she felt the blade cut upwards across her ribcage. Cloth and skin and muscle separated, and she realized that he was still holding her braid in his fist as he abruptly pulled her forwards. The knife went into her chest, missing her heart and scraping her sternum, but it was enough. Multiple stab wounds to the stomach, her right ribcage ripped open, her throat slit, and a knife in her chest? Each wound would kill her slowly, but all of them combined was enough to kill her quickly. The man looked confused as her eyes met his, like he couldn’t believe that he had just stabbed her, and he let go of the knife but kept a grip on her hair.

She couldn’t hear anyone else. The sounds of fighting were over; the men she hadn’t recognized were silent, Archer wasn’t cursing, and she couldn’t hear Siobhan. All she could hear was her own wet breathing and the panicked breaths of the man in front of her, and she locked her jaw as she reached up. The blade of the knife was stuck in bone, _cut into her chest and it hurt it hurt it hurt it hu-_ , but she had just enough strength left to pull it free. She didn’t waste time. As soon as the knife was out of her chest, she was plunging it into the soft skin on the side of his throat. Watched as the tip of the blade cut through to the other side, and all it took was one good push against the center of his chest and for her to lock her elbow to rip the knife through to the front of his throat.

He still looked confused as he fell backwards, throat gaping open, and he finally released her braid. The knife slipped from her numb fingers after he was on the floor, and she forced her head to turn to the side. Archer was lying stretched out on his front, face down in a pool of his own blood, and there were two men in front of him. One with blood and chunks of what were probably brain matter haloed around his head, and the other with a large hunting knife protruding from his eye socket. A few feet away, another two men were sprawled on the floor and unmoving. One’s windpipe had been crushed, his neck oddly flattened, and the other was lying next to a small broken table with one of the broken off legs sticking out of his chest. Siobhan was sitting propped up against the entertainment center, which was an old table that held up a TV and an ancient DVD player. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, head hanging loosely, and it looked like her jaw had been dislocated. She wasn’t moving, because a knife had been driven into her chest too. Right through the heart.

“I have to say, I didn’t believe the idiot when he said you were a fighter.” The voice came from her other side, but she didn’t have the strength to look away from her dead friends. She wasn’t even sure how she was still standing. Her body was going numb, except for the brief flashes of pain that struck her like lightning, and she knew if she so much as twitched that she would collapse.

_“Stay on your feet,” her father whispered and pulled her up from the ground._

“I’m man enough to admit that I was wrong,” the voice was saying. Calli was still trying to clear her head, because she had never had a father. She was the bastard child of a dead waitress. There had never been a father to give her advice or to help her stand when she had fallen.

“Are you going to kill me?” she heard herself ask. Footsteps were getting closer to her, closer and closer, and she was watching as the pool of blood under Archer’s body stretched to touch against Siobhan’s thick boots as the man knelt down to pick up the knife she had dropped.

“No.” The tip of the knife cut into her cheek, and the pressure forced her to turn her face back around. The man was…completely ordinary. His face could have belonged to a thousand people. There was nothing unusual or that stood out, and she could feel herself fading as she tried to focus on this man’s eyes. Weight pressed down on her shoulders as her knees started to shake, and she was suddenly afraid.

She had been afraid before. Afraid that her foster parents would never remember to feed her. Afraid that the person responsible for her would go too far while beating a lesson into her. Afraid that her mother left her all alone in the world knowing that she’d never be safe. She had even felt afraid to die once, afraid to truly die as a different man with a similar face had held a knife to her, but it felt bigger this time. An all-consuming fear that made her want to curl up and cry with the blankets pulled tight over her head. That made her want to throw her head back and scream until the world was forced to hear her, just once before she stopped existing. She wanted to fight, _to plant her feet like a tree and feel the hot burn in her arm as she swung her sword again and again and again_.

“Haven’t you realized yet?” the man asked her. For a moment, for the space of a sluggishly beating heart, she had been able to feel sweat soaked leather against her palm. Maybe she was remembering her past lives before dying.

“Realized what?” The moment after the words left her lips, her legs gave out. She felt the knife cutting against the side of her face as she went down, her knees hit the floor so hard that her teeth clacked together and a fresh stream of blood poured from her stomach, but she was still looking upwards. At the average-looking man holding a duffel bag that was probably full of Jonesy’s hard earned money. The man was staring back, not with pity but something close, and her whole body was aching now. Ready to collapse.

“You’re already dead.”

Her head fell forwards, chin dipping towards her chest, and she listened as the man’s footsteps got farther and farther away. Her knuckles pressed against the hard floor as her spine turned into liquid, and the gym door closed. Heavy wood knocking together before everything fell silent again, and the bones in her curled fists ground against the floor as she opened her mouth and screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed until she felt dizzy, until she had lost all of her air, and then she finally let herself fall.

The couch blocked her view of Archer and Siobhan, but she held onto her memories of them as darkness started to creep around the edges of her vision. Could hear Archer laughing and singing, see his dark overgrown hair swaying as he danced to music that only he could hear. Saw Siobhan’s graceful movements as she stretched her body in the early morning sunlight, quiet words like prayers slipping from her lips. They were so different, all three of them. What had linked them was that they had all fought to live and were determined to keep on living, but they had all died young. Her and Siobhan were twenty-three, still just starting out, and Archer was only sixteen. It was too soon for them to die.

_“Behind you!”_ It sounded like Siobhan yelling, from somewhere far away. Maybe her friends had moved on. She was about to find out.

Calli Hill closed her eyes, pulled in one last slow breath and then released it, and fought against the darkness until it overtook her completely.

**CALLIANNA**

Callianna Banefort shook off the feeling of death, bared her bloody teeth, and raised her sword as she twisted around to stop a coward from stabbing her in the back.

**TYRION**

“This one wants to say something but is holding back,” Tyrion said and dared to point a finger right at the Hound’s face. He glanced from the corner of his eye at his other companion, who ignored him completely in favor of taking a long drink. “Why do you think that is?”

“Probably has something to do with you being a Lannister, my lord,” Ser Ivan said as the Hound merely grunted.

In all honesty, to himself if not to anyone else, Tyrion preferred Ser Ivan’s company over his usual circuit of whores most nights. Ser Ivan Banefort was merely a master-at-arms in practice, removed from the City Watch yet tasked with training the men who played at being soldiers, but he had also fought with Robert during the Rebellion. The man had been a fierce warrior in his prime and still was, according to numerous reports and whispered gossip. He was more than just a man that knew how to swing a sword; he spoke truthfully and intelligently, was highly observant of everyone whether they be highborn or lowborn, and he treated Tyrion less like a lord and more like a friend after a few cups of good wine.

Clegane had been a surprise tonight, when Tyrion had joined Ser Ivan at the training grounds where they had a habit of drinking at an old sturdy wooden table only a few feet away from where Ser Ivan taught men how to properly swing a sword. He knew that the Hound didn’t have to guard Joffrey day and night, but he hadn’t realized that Ser Ivan and the Hound were aware enough of each other to share drinks. Of course, then again, they were both men of few words. They had been completely silent when he first joined them. Perhaps they never even spoke to one another? What if all they ever did was sit and drink in silence without ever trading a single word?

“Ser Ivan! Ser Ivan!” The boy who ran to their table tripped over his feet but caught himself on the table, and Tyrion was just able to stop his cup from toppling over. He had just gotten it steady when the boy drew in a deep breath to speak, and the panicking lad spoke in a rush. “Lady Pyne is missing from her room! The guards cannot find her, but one of her handmaidens said she left with…with… _uhm_.”

The boy looked distressed as Ser Ivan continued to look at him steadily for him to continue, but it seemed as if words had failed him. Ser Ivan stood from the table to his full height, and he looked down at the frightened boy as one hand went to rest on the hilt of the sword at his hip. “Lady Pyne uses my kids as guards when she gets restless. Is that what you are trying to tell me, boy? That my kids were spotted leaving with Lady Pyne?”

“Yes, Ser Ivan,” the boy said and ducked his head.

“I will find Lady Pyne. Go assure her attendants.” The boy bobbed his head and ran off, and Ser Ivan reached down to grab his cup. He quickly drained the wine and returned the empty cup to the table, but Tyrion wasn’t a fool. Not even after the numerous cups he had consumed since coming outside. The usually stoic knight was worried.

“I didn’t realize you had children,” Tyrion remarked. He didn’t normally visit the training grounds during the day, but surely that wouldn’t matter. Ser Ivan was still a knight and still a highborn lord, and the training grounds were no place for the highborn children of a knight.

“One daughter, one ward, both fully grown now,” Ser Ivan explained in his usual simple way. Then his focus turned to the Hound, who looked up at the standing knight with an impassive expression but a slightly resigned slope of his shoulders. “You know the kids. Help me look for them?”

“Aye,” the Hound grunted and lumbered to his feet. Both men were standing now, ready to look for the missing Lady Pyne, and Tyrion slammed his empty cup onto the table as well before standing up.

“I will help you search as well,” Tyrion decided. The Hound made a sound deep in his throat, a cross between annoyance and humor, and Ser Ivan looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t.

“Your help is greatly appreciated, my lord. We should start in the gardens. Lady Pyne likes to walk the paths at night.” Ser Ivan walked off first, with the Hound slowly trailing behind, and Tyrion walked as fast as he was able as he tried to picture Lady Pyne.

The faces blended together over the years, he realized as he followed after the two seasoned killers, but some of the noble lords and ladies stuck out from the blurred crowd. Lady Pyne, from House Pyne of Peakridge, was one of the noble ladies of the court from The Reach. She stood out amongst the other noble ladies because he had never once seen her smile or wear one of the more open dresses favored in her home region. Despite the summer heat of the south, she kept herself truly covered. Then, of course, there were the rumors. Everyone knew the story of Lord Kelstan Pyne, the young Lady Pyne’s father. The man had abused his wife and young daughter horribly, and the story went that in a fit of madness he had grabbed his young daughter and jumped from a window. The rumors, however, said that his young daughter had been the one to push him. Which version was the truth didn’t truly matter. The child had survived, and the father had not.

If the young girl had pushed her abusive father from the window, then good for her! The stories said that when someone arrived to help, the girl’s mother had been beaten so badly that it was a miracle she had survived. Of course, she had survived and remarried. Married the previous lord’s younger brother, as a matter of fact, but Tyrion couldn’t remember when the daughter had arrived in King’s Landing. He knew it had been years after the incident, but the details were lost to him. Her story was what stood out, but he was hard pressed to remember the girl’s features as he walked through the gardens. Long dark hair that shone red and dark colored gowns, butt she always kept her head bowed so that was all he could remember.

He wanted to see Ser Ivan’s daughter and ward. Ser Ivan’s hair had turned to a dark silver and his eyes were a light brown that warmed after a few drinks. What kind of children had the quiet man raised? Would they be as quiet as him? He had said that Lady Pyne used them as guards, Tyrion hadn’t missed that little detail, so were they fierce like him? Had he trained them both to wield swords so expertly that they were capable guards for a lady of noble birth? He was quite looking forward to meeting them, there was so much potential for interesting stories. All he had to do first was navigate these twisting gardens and see if he could find them.

“Behind you!” The voice came from up ahead, and Tyrion hurried towards where he was sure the yell had originated from. He took one wrong turn, cursed the amount of wine that he had consumed throughout that day and night, and doubled back. The sounds of fighting were clear as he got closer, steel against steel, and he passed a hedge and instantly froze as he took in the scene.

Three, four, five men were lying in the garden clearly dead. On the far side of the small courtyard, Lady Pyne was lying on the stone walkway. Her dark dress was spread around her and soaking up blood from one of the dead men, but he could see her chest moving shallowly. To his left, there was a boy on the edge of becoming a man kneeling over one of the dead bodies. He looked up as if he could feel eyes on him, and his dark hair was slicked against the side of his face with blood. There was a knife embedded in his shoulder, blood from sources that he couldn’t identify, and he was swaying. When he noticed Tyrion, he smiled and winked before falling face down onto the stone walkway. Unconscious or dead, he couldn’t tell for sure.

Sound from his right caught his attention, but all he could see was a tall man’s back. There was a quiet grunt, a slick squelching sound that turned his stomach, and then the man fell backwards. He fell onto two other dead bodies, and Tyrion slowly looked away from the vaguely familiar face and upwards until he could see who had killed him. The young woman was breathing harshly, the thick braid her hair had been in was half undone as if it had been repeatedly yanked on, and her dark eyes were wide. When she raised her arm to return her sword to the sheath on her hip, he saw the gaping cut in her thin shirt and a ragged mess of bloodied skin underneath. Her side had been cut open, the top of her shirt was gaping open from another deep cut, and there was even a still bleeding line cut across her throat.

She fell to her knees and noticed him for the first time, and he could hear shouting coming towards them. Help was coming, but he was afraid that it would be too late. Several men were dead, and it looked as if Ser Ivan’s children weren’t very far behind. The woman in front of him was staring, and each hard breath caused more blood to pour from her body. Tyrion maneuvered around the dead bodies until he was standing in front of her, and he was surprised at just how much taller than him she was while slumped on her knees. Most women, even kneeling, were still taller than him. Despite that, she still seemed to tower over him. This close, he could hear the whistling of air coming from her damaged throat and see the greenish color of her eyes.

“Tyrion Lannister.” The young woman looked confused, he assumed from the massive amount of pain that she had to be in, and he held still as her hand raised. It looked as if she wanted to touch his face, her fingertips nearly brushed his cheek, before her eyes suddenly closed and her body fell forwards. He managed to catch her without falling over himself, and he kept her upright as he started to yell for help. Over and over, louder and louder.

“Calli!” Ser Ivan dropped to a knee next to Tyrion, and his eyes were filled with panic as he looked at the young woman. Even to a stranger, it was obvious that the knight loved this young woman. His daughter. His eyes moved to Tyrion, and he realized he had tightened his grip to hold the woman more securely and keep her from falling. “Is she alive?”

“She is still breathing for now,” Tyrion said quietly. He could feel breaths against the side of his neck, short puffs of air with long pauses, and he worried that she was fading. Ser Ivan bowed his head and quickly moved off, and Tyrion was able to turn his head just enough to see him checking on the boy who had winked at him before falling. He must have still been breathing, because Ser Ivan nodded once in relief and then hurried towards Lady Pyne.

“Clegane!” Tyrion hadn’t even noticed the Hound joining them, but when he turned back around he could see the man looming over him. “Take the kids to my quarters. I will see to Lady Pyne and alert the others.”

Tyrion managed to turn enough to see the Hound sling the young man over his shoulder, and he couldn’t read the look on the large man’s face as he scooped the young woman lying slackly against Tyrion into his arms. As the Hound started to stride away, Tyrion looked around at the gore spread across this corner of the gardens. Ser Ivan was holding Lady Pyne carefully and moving towards the Red Keep, and Tyrion hurried after the Hound. It looked like he was going towards the training grounds, and he was proved right several minutes later when the Hound crossed the grounds and walked straight into a small stone building that Tyrion had always assumed was used to house armor and weapons. The Hound walked inside like he had visited the place before and entered a side room with two thin mattresses on the ground, and Tyrion watched from the doorway as he gently laid his two burdens down.

Once they were settled, Tyrion walked farther into the room so that he was standing next to the Hound’s kneeling form. The beds were placed along a corner, running down opposite walls, so that their heads were close together in the corner. So close that some of the woman’s long pale hair brushed across the young man’s bed, and Tyrion could see a strange look on the Hound’s face as he looked at them. He had only ever seen the man snarl or stare menacingly, so he forgave himself for not recognizing the expression as worried. Clearly, the Hound knew these two well enough to worry for them. Tyrion must have been studying him for too long, because the Hound’s face suddenly went blank of all subtle emotion and his large body became tense.

“Archer Forrester.” The scarred man was looking at the previously unnamed ward, the one who had smiled and winked before collapsing, and he still had a knife deep in his shoulder. “Banefort brought ‘im back from the North.”

“And the other?” Tyrion was afraid that the sound of his voice would break the spell, but all the Hound did was turn to look at the woman.

“Callianna Banefort.” It was a beautiful name for what he was sure was a beautiful young woman under all of the blood on her skin, but the knight had called her Calli. An affectionate name for his daughter that should have never been said with the fear he had heard earlier. “Only Callianna had a sword. Both of ‘em should’ve been better armed.”

One young woman in King’s Landing carrying a sword was odd enough, and the Hound thought that both of them should have been better armed? Even the Goldcloaks, that Ser Ivan helped train, only patrolled the city with one sword apiece. Then again, the three of them had been attacked by six men. Perhaps if Ser Ivan’s daughter and ward had been carrying a few more weapons, they wouldn’t be so wounded now. Tyrion could hear their breathing, slow and ragged, and he knew that they needed help. Someone with experience, which most definitely was not him. Something told him that the Hound had more experience with putting holes in people than patching them up, so someone needed to go get help because there was no telling how long it would take before Ser Ivan would be able to return.

“Go find a septa or anyone that can help them.” Tyrion thought for a moment that the Hound was going to argue or just simply refuse, but all he did was snort indelicately and then got to his feet.

Tyrion sat down between the two, close enough that he would be able to tell if one of them were to stop breathing, and he started to take in little details that he hadn’t been able to notice earlier. It looked as if the young woman kept her hair pulled back in a functional braid rather than in the intricate styles that the ladies of the court used, and the boy had longer hair than was usually seen on highborns with it tied on the back of his head. They both wore trousers and thin cloth tunics, not fine silk, and their skin was tanned as if they spent long hours in the sun instead of confining themselves to the shade. It did not seem to matter that one was a daughter and the other a ward of a knight, that they were both from highborn families; they appeared to prefer the training grounds over the sewing circles and proper chambers, and it was likely what had kept them alive tonight as well as Lady Pyne. Ser Ivan’s daughter had pale blonde hair and looked to be of the same age as Lady Pyne, and his dark-haired ward looked younger and not quite fully grown yet despite the knight’s earlier claim.

Time passed slowly as he strained to hear their breathing, as he looked between them with the hope that one of them wouldn’t slip away while he was looking at the other, when he heard a groan. He was looking at the Banefort woman, who was deathly still except for the occasional rise of her chest, but he quickly looked to the left to see that the young man’s eyes were open as he struggled to sit upright. All of the movement was causing the knife in his shoulder to move, fresh blood was spilling down his arm and onto the mattress below, and he knelt by his side.

“Be at ease, you are safe,” Tyrion said as his hands pressed against the solid strength in his arm. He suddenly went still, eyes wide and panicked, and Tyrion realized that his hands were now wet with his blood.

“No, no, no, no,” he moaned as his body bowed. Even with all the movement, his eyes never left Tyrion’s face. “I died, didn’t I? Why is there so much pain if I’m dead?”

“Because you are not dead, my lord,” he said quietly in what he hoped was a soothing tone. A wretched groan of pain was ripped from him as he fell back against the thin mattress, which looked to be cloth stretched over straw on the hard ground, but he still wouldn’t look away.

“I am not dead,” he repeated. His eyes clouded over, and Tyrion noticed that he had started to shake. Even at night, the air was still overly warm but he was shivering like it was the middle of winter. “I am Archer Forrest…Archer Forrest…Archer For-”

“Forrester, I know.” Wide panicked eyes searched his, and he could feel the muscles in the young man’s arms tensing and trembling.

“Forrester.” The name was said in an exhale, and he realized that his left hand was struggling to cross his midsection. He wasn’t sure what he was attempting to do, and he was more than surprised when his hand suddenly grasped his. For someone who appeared to be on the edge of death, he had a very strong grip.

“Ser Ivan will be here soon.” Tyrion wanted to tell him that the Hound had gone for help, but he was still confused about the large man’s relationship with the two young people in Ser Ivan’s care.

“Siobhan? Calli?” Siobhan, that must be Lady Pyne’s given name.

“Lady Callianna is resting next to you, and I am sure that Lady Siobhan is just fine.” His face scrunched up and his eyes finally stopped staring at him, and he wanted to comfort the young man but didn’t even know where to start.

“Doesn’t make any sense,” he was muttering with his eyes tightly closed. “Tyrion Lannister called me a lord.”

Tyrion started to reply but stopped when he realized that he had become unconscious again, but he was still gripping his hand tightly enough that he couldn’t easily pull away. So he allowed himself to plant his ass on the ground, carefully holding the young man’s hand in a way that it wouldn’t jar his opposite shoulder, and made sure that he could see the other unconscious person in the room. Time seemed to stretch out as he waited, until he could tell the difference between their breathing. (Lord Archer Forrester’s breathing was deeper, quiet little snoring sounds when he breathed in, while Lady Callianna Banefort took slow breaths and there was a faint whistling whenever she exhaled.) Lord Archer tightened his grip on Tyrion’s hand whenever he groaned in his unconscious state, and Lady Callianna’s fingers constantly curled and uncurled into fists.

“Lord Tyrion.” The woman who walked into the small room ahead of the Hound was older, with a deep basket hooked over one elbow, and she bowed her head and didn’t look up as she spoke.

“Can you help them?” Tyrion asked her. She wasn’t a septa or a maester, but he didn’t think the Hound would bring someone clueless to help those that he clearly knew well enough to feel worry for them. The woman lifted her head and nodded, and Tyrion used his free hand to motion her into the room.

“I need to see the wounds,” the woman said first as she looked between them.

“I’ll be outside,” the Hound told Tyrion. He assumed that the man was talking to him, because he made eye contact with him before turning to leave the room. When Tyrion turned back around, the woman was already stripping Lord Archer’s top half.

“If you wish to stay, Lord Tyrion, you can assist or you can not hinder me.” That was the most polite way that someone had ever told him to stay out of the way, and he nodded to show that he understood and then asked how he could help.

Between the two of them, Archer was stripped quickly. (Considering that Tyrion was going to be tending to their wounds, or at least assisting the woman who was going to be attending to their wounds, he thought he could drop the mental formalities for now.) His upper body was stripped bare, the cloth tunic tossed to the side, and blood streaked across golden skin to stain the mattress underneath. The older woman, who he learned was a cook in the Red Keep by the name of Maulda, tended to the knife first. One hard yank freed the blade and caused a flood of blood, but Maulda quickly wiped the excess blood away and then started to sew the skin back together. Tyrion’s job was to hold the skin together with one hand and mop away the blood when Maulda could no longer see the skin to sew.

The wound was covered with a thick paste and a square-cut bandage when Maulda was through, and they moved on to Archer’s arms. From near the tops of his shoulders down to his hands, deep cuts ripped the skin so much that it looked like he had been attacked by a wild animal. The Hound said that only Callianna had been armed, and Tyrion didn’t know much about battles or sword fighting but he did know enough to make an educated guess about what had happened. When Archer had been attacked, he must have used his arms to block the strikes. A few of them were shallow, but the majority had to be sewn closed. By the time they were on his second arm, Maulda had taught Tyrion how to properly stitch the skin back together.

“This one might live,” Maulda declared when they were done. She used a forearm to push hair away from her forehead, and she handed him a cloth to clean the blood from his hands before she moved over to Callianna.

Once the wettest blood had been wiped from his hands, he joined Maulda at Callianna’s side. After a quick look, the older woman decided it would be best to pull the mattress farther from the wall so that they could kneel on either side of her. So they moved her, and Tyrion knelt on the far side of her as they quickly stripped the simple tunic from her upper body. Like Archer, she wore no shift underneath and only had a cloth wrapped around her chest to preserve modesty. As far as numbers went, Callianna had less wounds than Archer. The wounds themselves, however, seemed deeper. There were three stab wounds in her stomach, each with ragged edges, and Tyrion took the needle from Maulda without her even having to ask. Her stomach was sewn first, and Tyrion and Maulda divided the other wounds. While Maulda carefully pulled the skin over the woman’s right ribcage back together, Tyrion moved his needle and thread through the deep slices in Callianna’s chest and throat. It looked as if whoever she had been fighting had tried to stab her in the heart but missed, the cut was more to the center, and thankfully the slice across her throat was only about the length of one of his fingers.

“This one? What are her chances?” Tyrion asked after they were finally done. He had let himself fall back so that he was sitting propped up against the wall, and Maulda was kneeling between the two wounded and carefully surveying their work.

“Might live,” Maulda sighed. So there was a chance that they both might live. Tyrion sincerely hoped that they did. They seemed far too interesting to die now.

**CALLI/CALLIANNA**

_A hand was locked around her braid, pulling tight so that she couldn’t move, and there was a knife against her throat._

**_The blade against her throat was dull, as if it had never been sharpened, and that made her feel irrationally upset. Someone had the blade only as something to look at and had neglected it, and now that it was being used in an attack that wasn’t going to end well for the person wielding it._ **

**_“Take your hands off of me!” Siobhan yelled. Calli let her focus shift as she realized that the person holding her was only trying to restrain her, not actively trying to kill her, and the first thing she saw was Archer’s enraged face. There was a man standing behind him as well, with one thick arm wrapped around his throat and the other holding a knife to his stomach, and Archer only held her eyes for a moment before they both turned to look at where Siobhan was still yelling._ **

**_Two men pushed at Siobhan, causing her to turn so that she was facing towards them now, and Calli tried to rush to her but was stopped by the man behind her. The top of Siobhan’s dress had been sliced open, and blood was spilling from the long cut across her chest. It looked as if the deep cut stretched from shoulder to shoulder, under her collarbones but above her breasts, and she saw Siobhan’s fierce look before she was grabbed by two different men and flipped over onto her back. As Calli and Archer both started to struggle in earnest, the two men who had turned Siobhan over began cutting at her dress over her thighs. Within moments, blood started to blossom across the fabric._ **

**_“That is Lady Siobhan Pyne! You will be killed for this!” Calli called out. She thought that she recognized the young men that had caught them off-guard in the gardens. If asked, she would swear that they were the sons of noble lords. They wore fine clothes and were clean, so they weren’t rapists or thieves that had snuck in from King’s Landing. No, they were from the Red Keep. Which meant that they should have known who Siobhan was and what the consequences of attacking her were._ **

**_“Killed? Over the damaged Lady Pyne? Do you know who I am?” one of the men standing above Siobhan asked. Calli didn’t, so she locked her jaw as she watched Siobhan struggle to fight off the men trying to cut her dress off of her._ **

**_“You are the third-born son of Lord Marchand. She is the only child of Lord Kelstan Pyne. You will not be forgiven for this!” Archer yelled. A third-born son was still a lord, but Siobhan was the oldest heir of her house. It didn’t matter that she had no claim to the seat at Peakridge, because of her two younger brothers._ **

**_“Save your breath, Archer,” Siobhan said clearly. While none of them had been paying close attention, Siobhan had strangled one of the men with a piece of fabric ripped from her dress who was now gasping raggedly and the other man who had been trying to strip her was holding his hand over his eye as blood streaked down his cheek. “Lord Marchand thought his third-born son was an acceptable offer for a disgraced daughter of a great yet tarnished house, and I refused him.”_ **

**“Siobhan never mentioned a marriage proposal,” _Calli thought as the man behind her tensed so much that he began to tremble against her back._**

**_“I refused you,” Siobhan continued. Calli couldn’t see her face, but something told her that Siobhan was smiling as she said it. Because after she spoke? The young Lord Marchand’s face turned red, and the man standing just behind him stepped up to his side. The young lord had been refused by someone that the court largely considered disgraced, for ridiculous reasons, and it looked as if he had truly lost his mind. What was he going to do? Rape her? Kill her?_ **

**_Calli turned her head and continued to look forward until Archer turned to meet her eyes, and the two of them were able to speak using just their eyes and subtle facial expressions. It was late, so late that no one was going to stumble across them to help, and Archer quickly glanced at the sword on Calli’s hip. It was the only weapon between all three of them, they had grown lazy and complacent after years of undisturbed late night walks, but the single sword would have to be enough. Her father had taught each of them how to fight, both with a sword and without it, and Calli could tell that Archer believed that they could pull it off. Three against six weren’t the best of odds, especially since the men were armed, but they had to try. So while the man behind Archer was distracted watching as the young lord kicked at Siobhan’s abdomen, Calli counted them down._ **

**_One, two, three._ **

_Blood was streaking down Archer’s arms, so much blood that she couldn’t even see her friend’s arms anymore, and Siobhan yelled out each time that she took another hit._

**_Calli blocked the sword aiming for her face and felt her stomach turn hot at the sharp movement of her hips. The man who had been holding her had gotten in a quick slice across the front of her throat and three quick stabs to her stomach as she pulled her sword, but he had quickly pulled his own sword when he realized that she was turning around to attack him. As soon as her blade stopped his, she raised her leg and kicked his knee with all the force she had. The man screamed as the bone made an audible cracking sound, and she quickly looked behind her. Siobhan was fighting against the young lord and two other men, and Archer was swiftly dodging two swords as two other men tried to cut him down. His arms were dripping blood from blocking sword strikes, which meant that neither man knew what he was doing or Archer would no longer have arms, but Archer was still bleeding far too rapidly._ **

**_One of the men around Siobhan saw Calli taking steps towards Archer to help him and started coming straight for her, and she quickly called out Archer’s name. As soon as Archer saw her, Calli tossed her sword into the air and then turned to meet the other man head-on. She knew that Archer had caught the sword when she heard the clashing of steel against steel, and she immediately ducked as the man reached her. He had left his torso unguarded, so she pushed forward with her shoulder. She heard his breath stutter and stop, and her curled fist landed in the soft spot just under the center of his chest and pushed more air from his lungs. She could hear muttered cursing behind her, and she threw her elbow into the underside of the man’s chin before turning back to face the limping man who had first restrained her._ **

**_It wasn’t long before the winded man was attacking her again as well, and she was glad for all of the hours that she had spent training as her body instinctively moved to dodge the more fatal attacks. In between dodges, she caught glimpses of Archer and Siobhan. One man was lying dead close to where Archer was still standing, but the sword in Archer’s hands wasn’t Calli’s. It was broader and bulkier, and Archer had to use both hands to wield it. He must have taken it from the man he’d killed, and Calli’s sword had been passed to Siobhan. She missed seeing the first man fall, but she had just used the previously winded man’s own sword against him to slice his throat open when she realized that Siobhan was only fighting against the young lord now._ **

**_“Behind you!” Siobhan called out. When her sword was thrown to her, Calli caught it easily with one hand and quickly turned to block the strike aimed at her back. Instead of raising his sword again, the man locked his arms and cut upwards. Her reaction was too slow, and her ears rang as she screamed from the pain. The thin tunic she was wearing didn’t offer any protection from the sword’s blade, and the skin over her ribs was ripped apart._ **

**_Calli wanted to drop to her knees under the pain, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She could hear Archer and Siobhan fighting behind her, and she couldn’t let them down. She raised her sword and kept fighting, but her injuries were limiting her. The stab wounds to her stomach and the deep cut across her ribcage stopped her from moving in certain ways, and the blood loss from the wounds was making her slow and sluggish. The only injury that wasn’t a hindrance was the cut across her throat, but blood was sticking to her skin. Too much blood. This fight needed to end, and she locked her teeth as she swung her sword again._ **

**_The pain in her chest was a surprise. She had one arm lifted to hold off the man’s sword strike, the muscles in her arm were tense and hot, but he had used his other arm to attack her. She had forgotten about the man’s knife, and now it was in her chest. The blade had gone in to the left of the center of her chest, away from her heart, and she slowly looked upwards. The man looked surprised as he looked up from the knife in her chest, as if he hadn’t meant to stab her in the chest, and in his surprise he let go of his knife and took a stumbling step back. Everything was quiet behind her now, no more sounds of fighting, and the two of them watched as she pulled the knife free._ **

**_The man seemed to shake himself from his daze, and they slowly started to circle each other. Calli wanted to check on Archer and Siobhan, to see if they were even still alive, but she couldn’t risk a loss of focus. Not now. When the man finally attacked, she was facing towards her friends but couldn’t see them because his body was blocking her view. Every time she raised her sword, she felt weaker and weaker. By the time she pushed her sword into the man’s chest, she was too weak and too tired to feel any kind of relief. For some odd reason, she felt the urge to scream until her voice went out but fought against the impulse. In the end, only a quiet grunt slipped from her lips as she pulled her sword free and carefully returned it to the sheath on her hip._ **

_Her knees were pressed against the hard floor, curled fists pressing against the same hard floor were the only things keeping her from falling face first, and she needed to scream. She needed to be heard, just once. She needed the world to hear her mourning, for her friends and for herself, and she screamed until her lungs ran out of air._

**_The forceful impact of her knees against the stone walkway of the garden caused fresh blood to slick against her skin, and her fading vision searched around her. Siobhan and Archer were both on the ground, but she had to believe that they were both alive. If she was alive, they had to be. Then a face filled her vision, and she felt her confusion override the pain and weariness for a long moment. Because she recognized Tyrion Lannister, everyone in the Red Keep most definitely knew of him, but she had never met him. There was no reason for her to be formally introduced to such a high lord, but her confusion at seeing him was far more than that. Somewhere, screaming in the back of her mind, was the idea that seeing him wasn’t just improbable but actually impossible. The lord had no reason to be in the gardens at this time, but it felt as if she was the one that didn’t belong._ **

**_“Tyrion Lannister,” she forced out. Her hand raised without permission, because that screaming voice in her mind wanted to see if the man in front of her was real. Calli knew better than to ever touch such a high lord, but her hand still reached out._ **

**_Fortunately for her, darkness swarmed her before her fingertips could make contact._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I am sorry if the fight scenes were confusing. I’ve been in a few fist fights, but I’ve never been in a life endangering fight or in a sword fight. I did watch a lot of videos to try to visualize everything, but in my experience fights are very confusing anyway. 
> 
> This is mostly just an introductory chapter for the main original characters: Calli, Archer, and Siobhan. More will be revealed about them and their new circumstances in the upcoming chapters. If anyone wants to know something about the characters or the story, please ask! I love talking about my stories, and about _Game of Thrones_ in general.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. Part I - Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She needed her privacy to read her father’s last words, and he had no other plans for the day so he had all the time in the world to wait for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you continue with this story, please be advised that I have only seen the show. I started reading the books, but that was so many years ago that I remember nothing. There are going to be mistakes, and I apologize for that. This is all about having fun though, so I hope you enjoy reading.
> 
> Also, I know all the pairings for the story but don’t want to put them in the tags yet so it can be a surprise. If there’s a pairing that you absolutely hate and want to make sure isn’t going to be in the story, please ask me and I’ll let you know.

**CHAPTER II  
LIFE ISN'T FAIR**

**CALLI**

It felt like someone had just flipped the switch back on as Calli returned to consciousness, and that kind of immediate alertness caused her to start to raise herself up. Pain stopped what little upward momentum she had and pushed her back down, and she could hear herself gasping quietly as she sucked in painful ragged breaths. The worst of the pain was centered in her stomach, deep burning pain from several different points so that it all just merged into one massive area of pain, but she could feel other aches as well. There was a deep throb of pain in her chest, sternum area, and the front of her throat was itchy with pain. Her right side burned as well, and her arms and back and legs all ached like she had been fighting in the ring for hours.

The ring…at the gym. All of the pain made sense, because she had been attacked in the gym. Except, she hadn’t. She was attacked in the gardens, wasn’t she? She clearly remembered a gym though, but the word _gym_ was foreign in Westeros. Despite that, she knew exactly what it was. Just like she knew what a TV and a cell phone were. Just like she knew how to make her own clothes and sharpen her blades. Two different lives were blending together, same events in different worlds flipping back and forth, and the sudden pain in her temples was so sharp that she cried out.

Hands brushed over her hair and across her face, fingertips slipping across the tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes, and a sob hitched in her burning throat at the comforting gestures. Over the sound of blood pulsing in her ears and causing her temples to throb, she could hear Siobhan quietly shushing her. Just quiet sounds meant to calm her, and it actually worked. Siobhan wasn’t known for being sweet and gentle, but the real comfort came from Calli knowing Siobhan. They were friends, she had known Siobhan for nine years now, and there was a kind of stability in that familiarity. The pain in her head lessened until she could think clearly again, and she was able to force her eyes to open.

“About damn time. You two have been out for days,” Siobhan sighed. Calli already knew that she was laying down, that much had been obvious, but the dimensions were wrong. Her bed was up higher than this, but this bed was on the floor. When she tensed herself up and paid closer to attention, it felt more like she was lying directly on the floor instead of a bed. There was a little bit of padding but not much, and Siobhan was framed by grey stones.

 _“Siobhan rarely comes inside. It isn’t proper for a lady to enter the home of an unmarried knight.”_ The thought was so foreign that it made Calli’s stomach roll, and her fingers curled into the rough cloth under her body.

“What’s your name?” Siobhan asked before Calli could completely lose herself. The question itself was a simple one, but the answer wasn’t. Siobhan must have recognized the confusion, because her hand pressed against Calli’s shoulder hard enough to ground her. “The woman who fought in the gym, what was her name?”

“Calli Hill,” she answered. That was the name on her birth certificate. No middle name, no longer first name. Just Calli Hill.

“What’s the name of the woman who lives here?” Siobhan asked next. Here, in the small stone home next to the training grounds, where she had lived since she was thirteen.

“Callianna Banefort.” The names were different despite the similarities but felt like they belonged to the same person. Was she Calli Hill and Callianna Banefort? “Before that, I was Callianna Hill. Bastard from the Westerlands.”

“Strange, isn’t it?” The question came from Calli’s left, and she managed to get her head to roll so that she could look beside her. Archer was sitting up on his bed but slumped back against the wall, and Calli didn’t think that she had ever seen her friend look so pale. When Calli didn’t answer, Archer continued. “Remembering two separate lives? I remember being Archer Forrest, but I also remember being Archer Forrester. Similar lives but worlds apart.”

“At least you and Calli have slightly different names. The only difference between Siobhan Pine and Siobhan Pyne is the spelling.” Calli was looking back and forth between her two closest friends, and her vision of them kept shifting. One moment she saw them as they were in front of her, Siobhan in a loose dress and Archer only in loose cloth pants. The next moment she saw them as they had looked that night in the gym, Siobhan in dark jeans along with a sleeveless shirt and Archer in his loosely flowing workout clothes. Same but different.

“It’s not just the names,” Calli whispered and tried to sit up again. This time, Siobhan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her to sit up. She was turned so that she could press her back against the stone wall, and every part of her body ached and thrummed with pain. Once she could breathe normally and was sure that she could open her mouth without screaming, she explained further. “The details of our lives are similar too. In both lives, I’m the bastard of a waitress and an important man. A senator and a- _holy shit_.”

“Breathe, Calli,” Siobhan said quickly and reached out to grab her shoulder again. Across from her, she could see Archer looking at her with overly dark eyes in his too pale face.

“You’ve moved up in the world, Calli. You’re a Lannister bastard,” Archer said aloud and made it more real. In this world, Calli was the bastard daughter of Tywin Lannister and a tavern wench with no family name. She had even met Tywin once, when she was still a child, and he had told her then to never reveal her parentage. Siobhan and Archer knew, and so did…the man who took her in and gave her his name.

“I have a father in this life. Ser Ivan Banefort claimed me as his trueborn daughter,” she whispered. In the gym, she remembered her father’s voice telling her to stay on her feet. That had been Ivan. The knight who took her in as a child, after her mother was killed during Robert’s Rebellion.

“This is a total mind-fuck,” Archer groaned.

“Language,” Calli admonished on reflex. In the real world, she had taken in a thirteen year old Archer only a few months after becoming a foster parent. Archer had been living with her and been her responsibility for three years, until they died. Because they did die in the gym, and now they were in a fictional world.

“We woke up in _Game of Thrones_ , the show where dying is a guarantee. The situation calls for a little cursing,” Archer said with a pointed look.

“Why aren’t either of you a Lannister? Why me?” Calli asked and looked between her friends.

“You’re the only blonde,” Siobhan pointed out. Calli looked at her dark red hair, glanced over Archer’s dark brown hair, and held in a sigh at the sight of her own blonde hair draped over her shoulder in a loose braid.

“At least you have a cool backstory. My story is exactly the same; I’m the unwanted nephew of a noble house that had to depend on a stranger for survival, so it could be worse,” Archer said.

The story was the same, almost exactly. Back in the real world, Archer’s mother had died in childbirth and his father killed himself almost immediately afterwards in grief. Archer had been raised by his paternal grandmother until the older woman died when Archer was thirteen. His uncle, his only blood relative, had refused to take him in; the first foster home that he was sent to had been a nightmare, and Calli had been the second person to foster him. In this fictional world, it was nearly the exact same story. Archer’s parents died in the same manner; the only difference was that Archer Forrester’s grandmother wrote to Ser Ivan Banefort when she first started to become ill, because Archer’s father had fought alongside him during Robert’s Rebellion and was a close childhood friend. Calli traveled with her father to the North to get Archer, and they returned to King’s Landing with him three years ago. While Archer was technically Ser Ivan’s ward, Calli was the one who looked after him.

“My stories are identical as well. I didn’t get a break in this life either,” Siobhan sighed.

Siobhan was still the only child from her mother’s first marriage, and she had still been abused by her father for years. Until she was eight. That was when she had pushed her father from a high window; the official story was that her father had fallen and pulled her along with him, in both lives, but Siobhan had pushed him and gotten grabbed. Her mother married again, her dead husband’s younger brother in both lives, and had two sons. Siobhan had been sent to live with distant relatives when she was fourteen, but in this life she had been sent to King’s Landing to live with other ladies from the Reach. In both lives, Siobhan came from a well-known family with means. So, in a way, it made sense that she was a lady in this life.

“Mine are different,” Calli realized.

“Beginning is still the same. No named father, waitress mother, and the attack when you were seven,” Archer listed off. A robbery gone wrong in one life killed her mother and left her with a scar across her chest, and raiders taking advantage of the chaos during Robert’s Rebellion killed her mother in this life and again left her with a scar from a knife attack across her chest.

“There aren’t any foster homes in Westeros though. The tavern owner, your mother’s father in this life, kept you since you could still work. Then Ser Ivan Banefort visited the tavern and took you away a year later,” Siobhan continued. In both lives, seven year old Calli killed the man who had tried to kill her. In the real world, that had caused her to be marked as damaged. In this life, it had convinced her maternal grandfather to keep her around. Until Ser Ivan Banefort came to the tavern and took her away from the Westerlands.

“We traveled all across Westeros, from the North down to Dorne, before coming to King’s Landing. Ser Ivan claimed me as his trueborn daughter; King Robert declared it himself, so that Ser Ivan would agree to stay at the Red Keep and train the City Watch instead of returning to the Westerlands. I’ve lived here in the capitol since I was thirteen,” Calli realized. She had lived in King’s Landing for a year before Siobhan arrived at the Red Keep, and it had been another six years before Archer joined them.

“I remember how to box,” Siobhan whispered.

“And how to wield a sword,” Archer added.

“Two complete sets of memories,” Calli confirmed.

The three of them were quiet after that, letting it all sink in, and Calli felt like her head was going to explode. She could remember the pasts of both lives, the overlapping fear and determination, but she could also remember the very recent events. She remembered what it felt like to die. To scream as she bled out. She remembered fading away, into nothing. She _died_. Siobhan and Archer died. In one world anyway. In this life, they had somehow survived. The only difference was that they had a single sword between the three of them in this life, and that had made the difference. They were all wounded, but they were _alive_. Each set of memories felt completely real, but she was having problems accepting this reality since she watched it as a television show in her other life.

 _“What do we do now?”_ Calli thought as she looked between Siobhan and Archer. They looked just as lost as she did, because how were they supposed to handle this?

“I say we go with it,” Archer said several minutes later. Calli turned to look at him at the same time as Siobhan, and Archer looked at them both before shrugging. “If this turns out to be some kind of coma dream or last dream before death, we should make it count and have fun.”

“It can’t be that simple.” Siobhan didn’t sound as confident as she usually did, and she raised a brow in question when she looked at Calli.

“If my memory is right, Jon Arryn hasn’t died yet. This is before the show starts,” Calli pointed out. Siobhan was the only one that had ever read the books, but all three of them had followed the show. Had laughed and cried and yelled throughout all eight seasons, and it all started after Jon Arryn’s death.

“Oh! We’re living the trope!” Calli and Siobhan shared a confused look before turning as one to look at Archer, who rolled his eyes before explaining. “The time travel or dropped into a fictional universe trope? We know future events so that we can change those events. It’s a popular trope.”

“You want us to change the future of the show?” Siobhan asked.

“No, I want us to change the shitty future of our new reality,” Archer clarified.

“It can’t be that simple,” Calli told him. It couldn’t be, right?

They slipped back into silence after that, and Calli was in so much pain that it was difficult to think straight. Her entire body ached and pulsed with pain, from fighting off men that had tried to kill her. She’d been stabbed and sliced open, and every breath took so much effort. She could feel the hot throb of stitched together flesh over her ribcage and across the front of her throat, and the pain in her stomach and chest seemed to reach deeper. All of that paled in comparison to the agony inside of her head; the pounding was keeping time with her racing heart, and she felt like she was going to be sick. She could hear her own ragged breathing in the quiet of the room, and Siobhan and Archer looked about the same. Pale and like they were barely holding themselves up.

“Banefort! Forrester!” Calli tried to sit upright at the sound of the booming voice, and she saw Siobhan wince as she hurried to get to her feet. Her friend had just managed to stand up when Sandor Clegane walked into the room, and Calli’s head craned back as she took him in. She’d seen him on a screen and had memories of him, but seeing him now was different. He seemed larger in person, tall and looming, and he didn’t look exactly the same. Larger and broader, that much was obvious, but the burn scars on the side of his face looked more pronounced.

“Ser,” Siobhan said immediately and bowed her head. Calli was still looking at the side of Clegane’s face, so she saw the way his upper lip curled in distaste at the title.

“You should get back before someone comes looking for you,” Clegane told Siobhan. His voice was rough but low, not as loud as she thought he’d be, and Siobhan looked down at Archer and then at Calli.

“Go. We’ll be fine,” Calli promised her. She might be hurt and may have narrowly avoided death, after actually dying in a different reality, but she would still fight to protect Archer if she needed to. Siobhan nodded once in understanding, bowed her head to Clegane one more time, and then hurried from the room.

“Can you stand?” Clegane asked them. Calli wasn’t sure how she was even sitting up, but Clegane was tense in a way that she had never seen before. It was putting her on edge, and she could see Archer starting to fidget from the corner of her eye.

“Only one way to know,” Calli decided and extended her hands. Her memories told her that Clegane was a friend of Ivan’s, and he had trained with both her and Archer. Usually by fighting them both off at the same time. Still, he hesitated a moment before stepping forward and grabbing her wrists. He easily lifted her weight from the floor, and he kept his tight hold on her wrists as he waited for her to steady herself.

“My turn,” Archer declared. Calli heard the teenager grunt as he was pulled upright, but it wasn’t long before they were standing side by side and looking up at Clegane.

“They’re waiting,” was all Clegane said before turning around. Archer reached for a shirt sitting on top of a closed trunk, and she helped him to quickly pull it on so that they could leave. Calli put an arm around Archer’s back to steady him and help him walk as Clegane left the room, and she was thankful for her taller than average height since Archer was over six feet even at sixteen.

The walk from the training grounds and into the Red Keep was not an easy one; the stairs were particularly difficult, they had to take a few breaks to just breathe, but the distance itself was arduous. Parts of the castle looked familiar, but it mostly just looked like any other castle as they hurried through it. Every now and then, Calli caught sight of someone scurrying out of their way. For the most part, their walk was devoid of life. It was eerie to see the castle at night, the shadows stretching across the stones and the only light coming from torches, and Calli kept looking all around her as they moved. In about ten years or so, the castle was going to be destroyed. Crumbled and burned. If they really were here and not just having a coma dream, could they change things?

Calli stopped thinking as they walked into the throne room, and Archer froze at the same time. They were both staring at the Iron Throne as Clegane continued to walk, and Calli could barely believe her eyes. The show really hadn’t done the throne justice. This one was much larger, and it looked a lot sharper as well. There were definitely more swords, jutting out at all angles, and there was no way that it was a comfortable place to sit. Clegane must have noticed that they stopped walking, because he stopped not too far from the throne and looked over his shoulder at them. The look in his eyes was a clear demand, and Calli tightened her fingers around Archer’s side to get him moving again. Whatever was happening was important, and they didn’t have time to gape at the Iron Throne.

Clegane led them around the steps leading up to the Iron Throne and through a door somewhere behind it, and Calli could feel Archer leaning more of his weight against her. Like he was tiring out. It was something that Calli could sympathize with, because she felt like she could collapse at any moment. All of the walking had pulled at the wounds over her stomach and ribs, and the stitched together flesh was burning hotly now. She really hoped that none of the wounds were infected, because she was now living in a world that didn’t have antibiotics. Those thoughts were cut off as they entered into a room, and she could feel her eyes widening as her mind tried to process everything she was seeing.

The first person she noticed was the king himself, King Robert Baratheon. Like Clegane, he looked similar to how he’d looked in the show but with subtle differences. He seemed taller as well, like he took up more space, and he was large and imposing. He was standing next to a long table, where the Small Council met. Her eyes skipped over the people seated there, and she put a name to the familiar faces. Petyr Baelish, looking at them with calculating eyes. Lord Varys, glancing over them before his expression settled on something close to comforting. Maester Pycelle, dismissive and condoning all in one quick look. Renly Baratheon, who appeared half asleep and bored. An older man that had to be Jon Arryn, barely spared them a look before returning his focus to the king. Then, at the opposite end of the table from the king, stood Tyrion Lannister and Ser Ivan. Her _father_.

“This them then?” Robert asked as he looked them over.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Ivan said quietly. No, not Ivan. Because he was her father, she had memories of him treating her kindly and like a beloved daughter, even though they both knew who her true father was.

“They look dead on their feet,” Robert grunted. He looked away from her father and over at where she was keeping Archer on his feet, and Calli straightened her spine under his gaze. He was older and heavyset, but his eyes were still fierce. “Did you two play at being knights and kill the Marchand boy and his attendants?”

“We did, Your Grace,” Calli answered. Archer was nearly slumped against her side now, and Calli could hear him breathing out short gasps. Whether from the pain or the impossibility of what was happening, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“Tell me why.” Everyone else in the room was silent as Robert demanded an answer, and Calli didn’t look around to see what everyone else looked like. She kept her focus on the king, eyes locked, and explained as simply as she could.

“We were walking in the gardens when men grabbed us. We did not fight back until the men attacked Lady Pyne. Lord Marchand said that he was going to kill Lady Pyne for refusing his marriage proposal, and we fought to keep her safe,” she answered honestly.

“Be that as it may, killing a lord’s son is a punishable offense,” Maester Pycelle said. Calli locked her jaw to stop herself from glaring at the old man, because she knew it wouldn’t do any good. This meeting was being held to punish someone for the young lord’s death, and it sounded like everyone believed that only her and Archer had fought against the men. No one had mentioned Siobhan fighting, which was a good thing.

“If the boy had survived, he would have been killed for attacking a highborn lady. As for the others, they were from smaller houses. Attacking Lord Forrester and Lady Banefort would have resulted in their deaths no matter the outcome. The only thing these two did was protect themselves as well as Lady Pyne,” Lord Varys said quietly. The king looked at them at that, and Calli held his eyes for a moment before dipping her chin. If she managed to survive in this reality just to be killed again, she was going to be pissed.

“Lord Marchand will demand some form of punishment for the death of his son,” Baelish said. He looked almost like he wanted to smile as he looked them over, and she felt Archer shiver against her.

“Demand, will he?” The king had his eyes fixed on Baelish, who bowed his head a little and now looked like he had sucked on something sour. Served him right.

“I will take the punishment, Your Grace.” Calli startled at the sound of her father’s voice, and Archer groaned quietly as Calli suddenly gripped him too tight. She loosened her hold a fraction and turned her worried eyes to the man who chose to become her father.

“Why should I punish you instead of the one who killed him?” Robert asked. Calli wanted to speak up, but her father looked at her and shook his head just once. She swallowed her protests and waited to see what her father would say.

“Callianna and Archer are my responsibility, Your Grace,” her father said while looking straight at the king. Robert was standing at the end of the table and slightly bent over so that his fists were pressed against the tabletop, and Calli stopped breathing as she waited for what he would say.

“At first light, you will ride north to the Wall. You will renounce your title and lands, and you will renounce all claim to the seat at Stormcliffe.” When the king looked over at her, Calli held so still that she didn’t even breathe again until the king returned his eyes to her father. “Failure to join the Night’s Watch will result in the death of all three of you.”

“Thank you for your mercy, Your Grace,” her father said and bowed his head.

“Now, what do I do with the two of you?” Robert asked and looked directly at them.

“The boy can be sent back to Ironrath,” Baelish suggested.

“And the lady can enter into her uncle’s care,” Varys offered. Archer’s uncle, Lord Rodger Forrester of Ironrath, had already refused to take in his nephew once. If Archer was sent back to the North, he would essentially be homeless. As for her, Lord Quenten Banefort of Stormcliffe might accept her into his home but had already told her once that he would never claim a bastard as his family. Neither option was appealing, but it would be better than dying again.

“Let me take them,” Tyrion spoke up. Calli had nearly forgotten that he was in the room, still standing next to her father, but now all eyes were on him.

“For what purpose?” Renly asked. He sounded half asleep but still curious, and Calli was curious herself. What use would they be to Tyrion Lannister? Lannister…Tyrion was her half-brother.

“They are both well trained. I’ll use them as guards.” Renly snorted a laugh, and the others in the room looked faintly amused as well. “Can you imagine a better punishment for them? Than being the guards of the Imp?”

“You can have one of them,” Robert decided. Tyrion looked torn as he looked between her and Archer, and she wanted to beg him to take Archer. Tyrion was a good man, and she thought that Archer would be safe with him. He wouldn’t mistreat him or try to hurt him.

“Callianna Banefort,” Tyrion finally said. Calli squeezed her eyes shut but didn’t protest, and Archer’s breathing sped up.

“Your use of her?” the king asked him.

“House Banefort is sworn to House Lannister. I will keep her as a ward until I find a suitable husband for her,” Tyrion said carefully. When the king didn’t protest, Calli felt her heart starting to beat in her throat as her fingers pressed in deep against Archer’s side. She was sorted, but what were they going to do with Archer? He was only sixteen.

“I can use the other as a squire.” The voice came from behind them, low and rough, and Calli wanted to twist around to see what Clegane looked like after saying that but refrained. Robert was looking past them to where Clegane must be standing next to the doorway, and Calli watched the way that the king’s jaw worked as he thought it over.

“Banefort, you are to remain in the care of Tyrion Lannister until you are suitably married. Forrester, you are to serve Ser Sandor Clegane from this day forth until he releases you. Understood?” the king asked them. Calli wanted to grab Archer and run, until neither of them could run anymore, but she knew that wasn’t an option. They’d be hunted down, and they were both too injured to run anyway.

“Understood, Your Grace,” Calli said first. Archer quietly repeated her words, and some of the tension in the room seemed to ease.

“This meeting is over. Banefort, _Ivan_ , wait outside. You two, Clegane, Tyrion, stay,” the king listed off. Calli held still as chairs were pushed back, and she looked down at the floor as people started to walk past them. Seeing them all was still so strange, and she couldn’t handle looking directly at them as they passed by close enough to touch. The last person to walk past her was her father, and she felt his fingers skating across the back of her wrist before he stepped completely away.

 _“I think I’m ready to wake up now,”_ she thought desperately. She wanted to wake up in her small two bedroom apartment that she shared with Archer; wanted to feel sunlight against her skin as she stretched in bed, wanted to listen to Archer moving around the kitchen, and she mostly wanted to be alive in a world that she hadn’t watched on a screen.

“Banefort, come over here and let me get a look at you,” the king commanded. Calli glanced over at Archer, and he looked over at her with a slight smile before pointedly taking more of his weight and standing up straight. Calli let him go and slowly walked over to where Robert was still standing at the head of the long table, and every painful step reminded her of just how bad off she was.

“She was quite injured in the fight, Your Grace,” Tyrion said quietly as he joined them. Robert looked at where Tyrion was now standing next to her but didn’t say anything in response, and Calli prayed that she could keep her spine straight and wouldn’t fall over as the king’s eyes met hers.

“Tall for a woman,” he remarked. She had been taller than average in her other life too. She had stopped growing at five-ten, which meant she had towered over most people since she was around fifteen or so.

“I take after my father in that regard,” was how she decided to acknowledge his words. It wasn’t a lie either. Ivan Banefort was a tall man, over six feet tall, and so was Tywin Lannister.

“The rest must come from your mother.” The king was looking at her blonde hair and then straight into her green eyes, which were the opposite of a younger Ivan’s dark brown hair and his still clear brown eyes. She decided against telling Robert that her mother had brown hair and brown eyes as well. When she didn’t speak again, the king’s eyes swept over the thin clothes she was wearing. “How badly injured are you?”

“Only a few cuts, Your Grace,” she answered honestly. She was all sliced up and had lost enough blood that she still felt faint however many days later, but she didn’t really have that many actual wounds.

“I remember you, when you first arrived. Skinny, big eyes. Thought you were a boy until Ivan claimed you as his daughter,” the king told her. It was odd to have memories of that moment; the king had seemed even larger when she was only thirteen, and she had mostly stood behind her father while she was claimed as his trueborn daughter.

“That was the greatest day of my life, Your Grace. I cannot thank you enough.” In her other life, she was seven when she lost her mother. After that, she lived in foster homes with people who looked at her like she was worth nothing and treated her as a burden. In this life, Ivan Banefort had taken her in and loved her as if she really was his own daughter. It was strange to think that her fictional life had been better than her real one.

“Your father is a good man, a loyal man. For him, you come to me if you are ever mistreated,” the king told her. Next to her, Tyrion hummed but didn’t actually speak up.

“I will. Thank you, Your Grace,” she said and bowed her head. The king looked her over one more time and then strode around her, and she felt her right knee shake but thankfully stabilize before buckling completely. She glanced down at Tyrion, who didn’t notice the look as he reached for a cup sitting on the table, and she slowly turned around to see the king standing in front of Archer.

“You’ve got the look of a northerner. Strong,” Robert said as he clapped a hand against Archer’s shoulder. To his credit, Archer didn’t wince as his body was jostled. Calli could read him though, and she knew that the pinched look on his face meant that he was hurting something fierce. “The Hound will turn you into a man. Might even make you a knight someday.”

“Thank you for the opportunity, Your Grace,” Archer said and then bowed his head.

“Ivan has the two of you well-trained,” the king grunted and then turned to look at her again. “Enjoy your last night with him. He leaves at first light.”

“We’ll see to his departure, Your Grace,” Tyrion promised after draining a cup. The king cut his eyes down at him, but he didn’t say anything before grunting quietly and then leaving the room. She could hear his loud voice outside of the chamber, talking to her father, and she looked down at Tyrion. This time, he was already looking up at her.

“Thank you, my lord,” she started. Before she could say anything else, Tyrion was already shaking his head.

“I’ve heard that your uncle, Lord Quenten Banefort, is a truly droll man. I was only trying to save you from having to endure his presence,” Tyrion told her with a tight smile. Quenten was the Lord of Stormcliffe, despite being her father’s younger brother, and he had certainly never kept his dislike of her a secret. Then again, there was no guarantee that the king would have sent her back to Stormcliffe if Tyrion hadn’t spoken up. Not that the what-if scenarios mattered. She was now Tyrion Lannister’s ward, and he had no idea that she was his bastard half-sister. This was turning into such a mess.

“You still have my gratitude, my lord,” she settled on.

“Just Tyrion, please, my lady. I daresay we are going to be spending quite a bit of time together, after tonight. Tonight, you need only concern yourself with your father,” Tyrion said and looked towards the door. She didn’t know what to say, so she only bowed her head once in respect and then hurried forward.

“I’ll be there at first light,” she heard Clegane tell Archer before she reached him. As she wrapped her arm around Archer’s back again, Clegane walked from the room. Slowly and carefully, her and Archer turned around so that they could make their way towards the door as well. Tyrion walked ahead of them, and she heard him greet her father just as she finally reached the doorway.

“No, you should spend your last hours here with only them. We can speak before you leave,” Tyrion said quietly. Her father didn’t say anything in response, and Tyrion turned to look at her with that same tight smile before he walked away. Once he was out of earshot, she turned and tipped her chin up to meet her father’s eyes.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. Her father’s hand clasped against the back of her neck, and she could see him doing the same to Archer from the corner of her eye. He pulled them both close as he stepped in front of them, until her cheek was pressed against Archer’s and she could feel her father’s nose brushing against hers.

“Never doubt the pride I feel for you both.” Her father’s voice was quiet but strong, and she felt her breath stuttering as his hand squeezed against the back of her neck. Then he was pulling back away from them while his hands moved to lightly grip their shoulders. “We’ll speak at home.”

 _Home_. Despite giving the seat at Stormcliffe to his brother, her father was still a lord. By extension, she was a highborn. A lady. Archer’s uncle may have refused to take in him, but Archer was still the Forrester heir to Ironrath until his uncle had children. They were highborn but chose to live in a small stone structure no bigger than a hut outside of the Red Keep, several steps down from a castle, but it was home. As her father walked on Archer’s other side so that they could both support him as they walked, she realized that she was losing that home. She had already lost her home in the other world, that small apartment where she had lived with Archer, and now she was losing this one as well. They had been attacked and they had won, but they were still losing. Her father was being sent to the Wall, and her steps faltered as she realized what that meant. She assured her father and Archer that she was alright as they continued walking, but her mind was racing. In a few years, the members of the Night’s Watch were going to be repeatedly attacked. By wildlings, by each other, by white walkers and wights.

“You two worry too much. I can walk on my own,” Archer said once they reached home. Calli reluctantly let him go and watched him walk farther into their home, and she realized that her father was matching her slowed steps.

“Alright,” her father said once Archer was seated at the small table in the room. He had turned to face her, and Calli slowly shuffled around so that she was facing him as well. “Let me get a look at you.”

She didn’t remember being dressed in the simple shirt, but she was glad that she wore simple clothes instead of the more appropriate dresses. The only thing she was wearing was a thin linen shirt, and under that she had strips of cloth wrapped around her chest to cover her breasts. The deep stab wounds in her stomach and the long cut across her ribs made it a little difficult to pull the shirt over her head, but she managed after a moment. Her father had tended to her various injuries ever since she was a kid, so he had seen her without a shirt countless times before. So she held onto the shirt with one hand and held still as he carefully looked her over now. He was careful not to use too much pressure as he checked over the stitches in her skin, but she still noticed the way his hand shook just a little as he touched her stomach next to where she had been stabbed.

“It looks worse than it is. The blade was dull and didn’t cut very deep,” she told him. His eyes moved upwards, until he was looking into her eyes, and his lips were pressed into a thin line as his hand covered the long scar on the right side of her chest. It was years old now, faded white and rarely even ached, but her father looked just as devastated now as he did the first time he saw the scar where someone had tried to kill her. These injuries didn’t come from mistakes during training or from an accident. These wounds had been meant to kill her, and she carefully raised her free hand up to grab her father’s wrist.

“You did the right thing. You protected Lady Siobhan, and your brother,” her father said. When he leaned forward, she closed her eyes and tried not to cry as his lips pressed against her forehead. She didn’t open her eyes until she heard him step away, and she turned to watch as Archer smiled at the man who had adopted them and got to his feet. Because Archer was just as much her little brother as Ivan was her father. Maybe none of them had the same blood, but they were still a family.

“I really am okay,” Archer was saying as her father motioned for him to remove his shirt. After one stern look, Archer caved and reached for the bottom of his own thin simple shirt. As he worked to get his shirt off, she grit her teeth and pulled her own shirt back on. By the time she was covered once again, Archer had freed himself and was holding still as her father carefully looked him over.

“What did they do to you?” Calli whispered as she stepped forward.

“They failed to kill me, which is what matters,” Archer said. While her father inspected the deeper stab wound on the front of Archer’s right shoulder, she laced her fingers around Archer’s left hand and gently swept her other hand up his arm. Both arms had been terribly cut, with deep slashes from his hands and all the way up to his shoulders. If those men had known what they were doing, they could have easily cut his arms off.

“You are both here.” It sounded like her father was talking more to himself than to either of them, and she felt Archer squeeze her hand as he realized what she was already thinking about.

“After tonight, you won’t be,” she said and looked directly at her father. He carefully pushed Archer back into his seat and then held out another chair for her, and she gratefully eased her aching body into the hard chair. Once they were both settled, her father pulled out the only remaining chair and sat down with them.

“Joining the Night’s Watch isn’t the worst punishment,” her father started. He was wrong though. The Watch was miserable, and that was before all of the attacks. “I’m getting old, and there are worst ways to end my days. I know the Lord Commander; he’s a good man, and I’ll be treated fairly there. Neither of you need to worry for me.”

“You shouldn’t have to leave,” Archer said first.

“You didn’t even do anything, and all we did was defend ourselves,” Calli added. Even as she said it, she knew that it didn’t matter. In this fantasy world or in the world where she died. Nothing in life was fair, no matter the universe.

“My brave daughter and my fearless son,” her father said and reached out. Her and Archer moved at the same time, so that each of them were holding one of his hands on top of the small table. He looked between them with a faint smile, and it felt like her throat was trying to close up. “I will not be defeated by the Wall, and the two of you need to remain strong for each other. You must take care of one another, always.”

“Always,” they both repeated. It was something her father had said the day that they met Archer, and it had been repeated countless times over the past three years.

“I know he might not seem like it, but Clegane is a good man,” her father said as he looked at Archer.

“I know that. He’s trained with me for years, and I know that I can squire for him without problems,” Archer was quick to reassure. Clegane was a quiet man, gruff and unforgiving, but he wasn’t especially cruel.

“Calli, whatever you do, you must not show your face to Tywin.” Her father was looking at her now, and the grip on her hand tightened as their eyes met. Besides her father and Archer, Siobhan was the only other person who knew who her biological father was. Other than Tywin himself, of course.

“I don’t think that will be a problem. It’s no secret that Tywin doesn’t favor his youngest son,” she said and forced herself to smile. She was now Tyrion’s ward, which was surreal in several different ways. Thinking back on this life, it was difficult because Tyrion was her half-brother and there was a very real chance of being introduced to Tywin who may or may not recognize her. Going off of the memories from her other life, it was extremely odd because Tyrion had been one of her favorite characters in one of her favorite television shows.

“There certainly is no love lost between them,” her father sighed.

They sat at the table for several long minutes, until it became harder for her to keep her eyes open and Archer started to sway in his chair. Her father ushered them both into their room and helped them each to lay down, and he sat down between their beds so that he could grab their hands again. They spoke quietly and sporadically, but it became nearly impossible to keep her eyes open for longer than a few seconds. Between one blink and the next, Archer fell asleep. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, her father hummed quietly and bent down so that he could press a kiss against the top of her head.

“Sleep now, daughter. Everything will look better in the morning light,” her father whispered into her hair. She wanted to protest, to stay awake and listen to the sound of her father breathing, but her eyes closed anyway. Her last clear thought was that her father deserved better.

**TYRION**

“I didn’t think you’d be alone,” Tyrion said and looked up at Ser Ivan. He had been waiting just outside of the Dragon Gate when Ser Ivan walked through it with his horse, and the man was indeed alone.

“Couldn’t bear to wake them,” the man admitted. He looked down at Tyrion and narrowed his eyes in thought, and Tyrion held his tongue for once. He would let Ser Ivan speak in his own time. After a moment, the man spoke again. “I spoke with Clegane, and I know that he will look after Archer.”

“I promise you, Ser Ivan, that your daughter will come to no harm while in my care,” Tyrion promised. He respected Ser Ivan and would honor their friendship by looking after the man’s daughter, but he thought it might be more than that as well. Last night, in the chambers of the Small Council, he had observed the young woman. Despite not sharing blood, she had held the boy up and had seemed to almost shield him whenever the king looked their way. She had been quiet and respectful, but he had noticed that she never once feared looking their king in the eye.

“I know that you will not harm her; however, my Callianna is not like other noble ladies.” It seemed as if Ser Ivan was struggling with his words as his hand tightened around his horse’s reins, and Tyrion watched as the sun’s first light started to spill across the ground. Ser Ivan pulled in a breath and then continued with, “Did you know that she was my bastard? Until I made her my trueborn daughter.”

“I did not,” Tyrion answered slowly. Until the night that Lady Pyne was attacked, he hadn’t even known that Ser Ivan had children.

“Her mother’s father owned a tavern in the Westerlands, lowborn without a family name, and her mother was killed during the Rebellion. I didn’t even meet her until the Rebellion was over. She spent the first years of her life in that tavern, poor and unwanted.”

 _“I can understand the unwanted part even if I can’t understand what it’s like to be poor,”_ Tyrion thought as Ser Ivan looked at the ground.

“She’s a strong girl, my Callianna. Strong and fierce, a fighter just as capable as any knight. Can you understand that, Lord Tyrion?” Ser Ivan asked and looked directly at him. He thought, hopefully, that he understood what Ser Ivan was trying to tell him. Callianna Banefort wasn’t the type to wear pretty dresses and knit while waiting to be married.

“I will make no attempt to change her or force her to do anything that she does not want. If she wants to wear breeches instead of dresses, I will be the last one to judge her for it. If we are being honest with one another, I would much rather have her carry a sword than a sewing needle. As you know, I have an unfortunate habit of getting myself into dangerous situations,” Tyrion said and finished with a smile. To his surprise, Ser Ivan returned the smile. He had rarely seen the man smile without consuming several cups of wine first.

“Be honest with her and treat her with respect, and you will have her loyalty. Perhaps, the two of you will be good for each other.” Ser Ivan smiled at him again and then looked out at the Kingsroad, where the dawning sunlight was creeping ever higher.

“Safe travels, Ser Ivan,” Tyrion said after a moment had passed. Ser Ivan should have already been far away from the city, and it wouldn’t do him any good to keep him any longer.

“Take care of her,” Ser Ivan said before mounting his horse. Tyrion stayed where he was until he could no longer see Ser Ivan, and he turned around and then nearly tripped over his feet when he saw someone standing directly behind him.

“Are you trying to kill me?!” he yelled and pressed a hand over his racing heart.

“If I wanted you dead, you never would have turned around,” Jaime told him and grinned. He pushed away from the wall and stepped closer, and Tyrion forced his breathing to slow as he looked up at his brother. “Tell me the rumors aren’t true. Tell me that you didn’t take in a ward that just killed several men in the gardens.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Tyrion teased. Jaime’s lips thinned as their gazes locked, and Tyrion fought against the urge to defend himself. Unlike his father and his sister, his brother actually worried for him. Therefore, he did not need to defend himself.

“Have you lost your mind?” Jaime asked. Tyrion started walking, and he wasn’t surprised when Jaime easily fell into step next to him and kept their pace even. He waited until they were inside the gate and walking through King’s Landing before answering though.

“You didn’t see the garden. I did. Six men attacked Lady Siobhan Pyne. Six. Lady Siobhan is only alive because Lady Callianna and Lord Archer fought off six armed men with only one sword between the two of them.” Tyrion could still see the gardens, even though several nights had passed since then. The bodies, the blood, and the look of pain and surprise on Callianna Banefort’s face after she fell to her knees.

“Yes, yes, they were very brave and overcame great odds. That doesn’t explain why you are taking the girl as a ward,” Jaime said and looked over at him. He was clearly expecting a well thought out answer, but Tyrion didn’t have one for him.

“I find her interesting,” Tyrion answered honestly. Jaime muttered something under his breath that Tyrion couldn’t quite hear, but his brother’s face told him enough. He wasn’t pleased with the answer, but he didn’t appear to be angry or like he was going to argue. Not that it would do any good. It was done now and there was no going back.

As they walked through King’s Landing, Tyrion filled him in on everything that had happened. He started with drinking with Ser Ivan and the Hound, and he quietly admitted that he had been hoping to find the missing lady and her guards first only to regret being the one to actually find them upon seeing the carnage. The bodies he had seen first, the very still figure of Lady Siobhan with blood soaking into her dark gown, the boy who had not yet grown into a man falling to the ground, and then seeing the deep cut in the young woman’s side as she returned her sword to her hip. He told Jamie that he had caught the woman after she fell and then followed after the Hound as he carried them back to their home, and he kept his voice quiet as he talked about assisting Maulda in closing their wounds.

“I’m surprised they both survived,” Jaime said once Tyrion was done. He was looking down at his hands and remembering the blood that had stained his skin, and he curled his hands into fists and returned them to his sides.

“They’re strong, both of them,” Tyrion said as he continued to walk.

He picked up the story again from there. Talked about how he had sat at their sides after Maulda left, just listening to them breathe until Ser Ivan had returned. The man had looked like he had aged ten years in a matter of hours as he walked into the room, and Tyrion had quickly moved out of the way so that he could kneel between the two wounded. He knew that the young lord had only been Ser Ivan’s ward for a few years, but Ser Ivan had looked him over just as carefully as he had his daughter. Once he had been assured of their survival, he thanked Tyrion for his help and told him about Lady Siobhan. The lady had a long cut across her chest and several deep cuts across her thighs, but she had regained consciousness after reaching the Red Keep. The king had been informed of the attack immediately, and a raven had already been sent to the young Lord Marchand’s father in the Stormlands.

For the next several days, Ser Ivan’s daughter and ward only woke for seconds at a time. No one had been able to question them, but Lady Siobhan had spoken directly to the king and told him what had happened. A response from Lord Marchand had only just been delivered the previous evening, and the king had wanted everything to be sorted and done with before the lord arrived to claim his son’s body. It was extremely lucky that Banefort and Forrester had been awake, even more lucky that they had been able to walk, and he told Jaime all about the late meeting of the Small Council. The king had looked furious, which was a change from his usual lack of care when it came to most affairs, but Tyrion hadn’t missed the way that the king had looked at Ser Ivan. The rumors said that the knight had saved Robert’s life during the Rebellion, only for Robert to save him from certain death twice. After being saved for a second time, the knight had sworn to repay Robert. Which was why Ser Ivan had stepped down from his rightful seat at Stormcliffe and come to King’s Landing. All of that was rumor though, so Tyrion kept that part to himself.

As they weaved down the streets, Tyrion told Jaime about the very brief meeting. About how Renly had never even fully opened his eyes, the way Baelish and Varys had traded whispered words before the meeting ever began, how Arryn had carefully watched the king, and he didn’t bother with mentioning Pycelle because he didn’t want to waste his breath. He did tell Jaime about the way Lady Callianna had never backed down from the king’s gaze, about how calm she remained as she answered every question, and he even found himself talking about the woman herself. The height of her, towering over most ladies, and about how natural she looked in breeches and tunics. He even admitted to what he had promised Ser Ivan, that he wouldn’t try to change her and that he was seriously considering asking her to be a guard.

“You want a woman to guard you and keep you safe?” Jaime asked him. He sounded surprised and definitely confused, and Tyrion wasn’t sure how to explain his reasons for why.

“Why not? I already know that she’s a capable fighter. Would you rather I lock her in a tower until she can marry?” Tyrion asked.

“Of course not, but parading her around in armor with a sword? Doesn’t seem very proper,” Jaime remarked. Jaime wasn’t exactly wrong. Noble ladies were meant to always act properly, but Callianna Banefort wasn’t like all of the other noble ladies.

“Yes, and I’ve always been a champion of doing the proper thing.” When Jaime looked at him, Tyrion smiled and felt himself relax as Jaime returned it. “Meet her before you pass judgment.”

“Where is she?” Jaime asked curiously.

“I would assume in her home. I’ve already had a room inside the Red Keep prepared for her.” He should probably go to her home now, to see if she needed any help with packing her things.

“Then let’s go collect your ward,” Jaime decided for them.

The rest of the walk through King’s Landing was quiet, because he didn’t need to fill the space with words when he was with Jaime. His brother was perhaps the only person that he had ever felt truly comfortable with; he didn’t have to impress his brother with endless stories, and Jaime always seemed to relax a little more when it was just two of them. Still, walking through King’s Landing next to his brother’s golden armor attracted stares and whispers. Enough so that they were both a bit more careful with their words as more and more people started to move within the city. Still, it didn’t seem to take any time at all before they were at the small stone structure that had served as Ser Ivan’s home. To his surprise, the Hound was seated at the small table outside of the small house where Tyrion had spent many hours drinking with Ser Ivan.

“Are they inside?” Tyrion asked the Hound. The large man grunted an answer but nodded, and Tyrion glanced up at Jaime as they stopped in front of the house. After a moment, Jaime stepped away from him and then turned so that he could rest back against the wall next to the door.

“I will wait for you here,” Jaime told him. Tyrion nodded once, squared his shoulders, and walked inside. It was the same as the last time he had been inside, and he blinked in surprise at the sight of someone standing next to the single small table in the room. At the sound of his footsteps, Archer Forrester turned around and looked at him with solemn eyes.

“Ser Ivan has gone,” the young man said quietly. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand, slightly crumpled from a too tight grip, and Tyrion looked away from the wet shine on the boy’s cheeks. Because his height and the broad width of his shoulders didn’t mean that he was a man. Right now, he looked like a boy who had lost his father and was trying to remain strong.

“I know. I saw him off at the gate,” Tyrion said just as quietly. The boy dipped his chin, and he reached out to grab another piece of paper sitting on the small table. He moved stiffly as he turned towards Tyrion and took a few steps forward, and Tyrion vividly remembered stitching the skin of his arms back together as he held the piece of paper out.

“He left this for Calli. Would you mind giving it to her? I need to speak with the Hound,” he said. Tyrion took the folded paper between his fingers as he nodded his answer, and he heard a quiet _thank-you_ before the young man stepped around him and then continued on out of the house. After a moment, Tyrion walked into the small bedroom that Ser Ivan’s daughter and ward shared.

“Lady Callianna?” he called out. She was sitting up on her thin mattress, hair wild around her, and the loose shirt she was wearing showed a wide swath of skin across her upper chest. She had one hand pressed over her stomach, where he knew she had been stabbed, while her other hand brushed roughly across her cheeks.

“Lord Tyrion, I apologize for not greeting you properly,” she said and then moved as if she was going to stand up. Tyrion rushed forward with his arms outstretched, and the smile she gave him as his hands wrapped around hers was small and brittle. She used his hold to steady herself as she stood up, and he was once again reminded of just how tall his new ward was. His eyes weren’t even on level with her chest like with most women.

“I wish that I could leave you here to rest, but we need to get you moved into the Red Keep. I had a room prepared for you, but you can choose another if it’s not to your liking,” he said as he looked up at her. He was still holding onto her hands, and this time her smile looked stronger and a bit warmer.

“Any room is fine, my lord.”

“Tyrion, please.”

“Only if you call me Callianna, or just Calli. Whichever you prefer.”

“Callianna then,” he promised. She held her smile and then moved to look around the room, and he let his eyes follow her gaze. The room was sparse, and he suddenly realized that the entire home had been mostly empty. As if none of them had many possessions.

“If I could have a moment to get dressed, I’ll gather my things to take to the Red Keep,” she said while looking at a single trunk in the corner of the room.

“Nonsense. I can send someone to carry your things for you,” he told her. She was injured! She couldn’t carry her belongings all the way up to her new room.

“All I have is a trunk of clothes and my swords,” she explained.

“Still, there is no reason for you to injure yourself further.” He was still looking at that singular trunk, and he tried to imagine only owning a few items of clothing. He couldn’t.

“Thank you, Tyrion.” She paused before saying his name, and he knew that this situation was strange for both of them. They were strangers, and he was now responsible for her. It was an odd situation, but he remembered what Ser Ivan had told him. All he had to do was be honest with her.

“I want us to be able to speak frankly with one another, Callianna. You might be my ward now, but I would like for us to become friends. If at all possible,” he settled on. As he spoke, she turned so that she was looking at him and he was reminded of their clasped hands when her fingers briefly squeezed around his hand.

“I would like that, to become friends.” After taking a deep breath, she slowly lowered herself down until she was sitting on the floor. She kept one hand locked with his, but her other arm crossed over her stomach so that she could press her hand flat against her ribs. Standing must have taken far too much energy, because she looked relieved to be sitting again. Once she was settled, she returned her eyes to his. “I am not a complicated person. If there is ever something that you want to know, you only need to ask. The last thing I want is to become a burden.”

“Do you hate dresses?” he asked first. He watched as her nose scrunched up in confusion even as she smiled brightly at him, and he watched as she slowly shook her head.

“I don’t hate dresses, but they are very confining. I find it easier to breathe in looser clothes and with a sword within easy reach,” she told him.

“I promised your father that I wouldn’t try to change you, and I do not make empty promises. While you are under my care, you are free to do as you wish,” he promised her. He already respected her for ignoring societal expectations, and he didn’t want to change that about her.

“You may regret that before long,” she laughed quietly.

“I think the two of us will get along wonderfully,” he decided. When he shifted, he felt the paper that he had tucked inside of his vest move and remembered that her father had left a note for her. So he pulled it out now and held it towards her, and he saw the question in her eyes as she took it from him. He explained, “From your father. Read it, and take your time getting ready. I will be outside when you are prepared to leave.”

“Thank you, again,” she said as she held his eyes. Then she looked down at the folded paper in her hand, and he let his hand slip from hers so that he could leave the room. She needed her privacy to read her father’s last words, and he had no other plans for the day so he had all the time in the world to wait for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I want to talk about the fictional houses. As far as I know, House Pyne from the Reach and House Marchand from the Stormlands don’t exist. Those are my creations. House Banefort does exist, but the only thing known about them is their sigil and Lord Quenten Banefort who fought for the Lannister army. For this story, I have created an entirely new Banefort family and I named the Banefort seat because I got tired of typing House Banefort of Banefort. House Forrester also exists, but it’s more popular in the games. (Which I did not even know about until I started doing research of Northern Houses.) I have also created an entirely new Forrester family for this story, but the seat really is called Ironrath. I couldn’t change that because it just sounds too badass. So, I’m just changing things up as I go and mixing stuff together to fit with the story. 
> 
> Lastly, I do think of Calli as the main character of the three main characters. That being said, I do write in different perspectives in later chapters. I’m still setting things up right now, and I thought that would be easier with a limited amount of POVs. As the story continues, more and more perspectives will be written out. Just wanted to give a little heads-up about that.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	3. Part I - Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe, if she was lucky, she would dream about better first times instead of the future that she knew was waiting for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one new character in this chapter, named Nadeen. Her face claim is Poppy Drayton, who is used in the edit below. (Also, I know the edits aren’t great, but I get bored and they’re fun to do.)

**CHAPTER III  
THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE**

**CALLI**

Her bed in the Red Keep was somehow softer than the bed she’d had in her small apartment back in her other life, which was just another way of proving that life wasn’t fair. When she had first seen the size of her new room, she had forgotten all of the strangeness of the morning. For just a moment, she hadn’t just lost her father and hadn’t spent the past hour or so in the company of her unknowing half-brothers. Although, Jaime had been the one to break her out of her brief stupor by asking her where she wanted her trunk. Because Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer and knight of the Kingsguard, had carried her trunk for her. She had told him that the placement didn’t matter as she had looked around the room, and Tyrion had looked almost nervous when she finally looked at him again. As if she was going to complain about the large and beautiful room that he’d had prepared for her.

 _“Everything is so fucked,”_ she thought as she leaned back against the elaborately carved headboard.

She was alive inside of a fictional world, but everything certainly felt real. Waking up to see Archer’s bed empty and realizing that her father had already left had hurt, had ached in a way that she hadn’t felt since she was seven years old and shaking her mother’s dead body while pleading for the woman to get off the floor. Her father, in this life at least, wasn’t even dead. Not yet, anyway. Anything could happen during his ride to the Wall, and becoming a man of the Night’s Watch was as good as a death sentence. So, fictional world or not, she felt like she was mourning for a man who she remembered as a loving father.

Then there were all of the fictional characters. From King Robert Baratheon and all the way to the Lannisters. _She_ was a Lannister, and that was something that she was still having problems with understanding. She had enjoyed watching the Lannister family, but she had never once wanted to be a member of the family. The irony wasn’t lost on her though. In her other life, her mother had been a poor waitress who had an affair with a widowed Senator. She had known his name and had even looked him up to see what he looked like, but he had never once acknowledged her existence. In this life, she had met Tywin Lannister when she was eight years old. He had come to the tavern, where she lived and where she had watched her mother die, and he had talked to her like she was an adult. Her mother had told her that her father was a golden lion, which she had told him. Immediately after admitting that he was her father, he had told her to never speak the truth of her parentage. If she did, she would be killed. (She had still told Ser Ivan the truth, even before he became her actual father. She had told Siobhan and Archer, because they were her family.) Now she was a ward in her half-brother’s care, and Tywin would likely kill her if he ever saw her.

_You must remain strong, my brave daughter. Remain strong, for me. Stay on your feet._

Her father’s parting letter had been short and to the point, and she was going to follow his last instructions. Both out of respect to him and because she had no other choice. Maybe all of this was a coma dream or her dying thoughts as she laid bleeding on the gym floor, but that didn’t really matter. Everything felt real. The ache in her chest, the way her skin pulled and itched, and even the sheets under her hands felt cool and soft to the touch. Everything felt real, she felt real, so it was in her best interest to not turn into a raving lunatic and to keep herself calm. She was going to have to stay strong, because she was in a fictional world where she could easily be killed again. There was one positive in all of this though. She wasn’t stuck here alone.

“Your room is bigger than mine,” Archer said as he walked inside. She had called out for whoever had been knocking to come in, and she was glad that it was Archer and not another servant.

Ever since Tyrion and Jaime left her to get settled in her new room that morning, she had only seen servants. One had brought in a bath for her, but she hadn’t sat inside of the large tub. She’d had to be careful with cleaning around her stitches, because the last thing she needed was to get some kind of infection. So she had cleaned herself as well as she could, pulled on a simple white shift, and settled into bed. Different servants had brought in food, which was how she knew it was now nighttime because she’d had dinner around an hour ago. Archer looked like he had washed up as well, and he was wearing different clothes from the last time she saw him. His hair, which was also long enough here to nearly brush his shoulders, was free around his face and curling at the ends.

“Want to share?” she asked him with a smile. His answering smile was wide and toothy, and she patted the open space next to her. In this life, her and Archer had shared a room ever since Archer arrived in King’s Landing. In their other life, they had lived together in a small apartment with two bedrooms but she had never once turned Archer away from her bed. She knew what it was like to be unwanted, to wake from nightmares and remember that you were alone, and she had always wanted Archer to know that he didn’t have to be alone. Not as long as she was alive.

“My room is right next to the Hound’s. We’re in the Red Keep, yeah, but on a lower level. So I have a smaller room, but you have to walk up more stairs,” Archer said as he crawled onto the bed. He sprawled out next to her, but he laid down instead of sitting up. He twisted to lay on his side and propped his cheek on his fist, and she reached out to run her fingers through his dark hair.

“I think it evens out then,” she said absently. Pale blue eyes looked up at her, and she smiled down at him. She thought of him as a little brother, even if he was taller than her now, but she also realized that most of her actions were more maternal. Archer reminded her too much of her younger self sometimes, and she just wanted to take care of him in a way that she never had been. Not in their other life, at least.

“Are you still freaking out?” he asked quietly. His eyes were closed now as she continued to run her fingers through his hair, and this was something familiar from both lives.

“Jaime Lannister carried a trunk of my clothes. I’m definitely still freaking out,” she laughed. Archer’s own quiet laughter joined hers, but it was more subdued.

“He told me to call him Clegane, and he said that if I ever called him Ser that he’d cut me in two. I like him,” Archer told her and peeked his eyes open.

“Tyrion told me that I didn’t have to wear a dress and that I was free to do whatever I want,” she said and then shook her head a little. Being able to actually talk to Tyrion Lannister was something that she was still adjusting to.

Before either of them could say anything else, there was another knock at the door. She thought about what it would look like, her wearing only a thin shift with a young man in her bed, and then quickly decided that she didn’t care. If servants wanted to gossip, that was okay with her. Tyrion had told her himself that she was free to do whatever she wanted, and Archer was more like her brother. So she called out for whoever it was to enter, because she wasn’t going to stand up again until she absolutely had to. Archer didn’t move either as she called out, but his eyes did open fully so that he could watch as the door opened. She kept her hand in his hair while sitting up a little straighter, and familiar dark red hair slipped around the edge of the door a moment before she saw Siobhan’s face.

“Did either of you think to find me and tell me that you were okay? You’re lucky that my handmaiden lives for listening to castle gossip. Comfy?” Siobhan asked as she crossed the room.

“Walking up the stairs was enough to wear me out,” Calli confessed.

“And I just found Calli about ten minutes ago,” Archer told her. Siobhan carefully eased herself onto the mattress at the foot of the bed, and she leaned back against the footboard before stretching her legs out in between Calli’s own legs and where Archer was lying.

“Are you both alright?” Siobhan asked after looking them over.

Calli told her about the previous night, the council meeting and everything that had happened afterwards, with a few comments tossed in from Archer. Siobhan’s eyes had widened when Calli first mentioned seeing the king, but she only spoke to apologize for being the cause of Ser Ivan being sent away. Calli and Archer both waved the apology away, because nothing that happened was Siobhan’s fault. All she had done was refuse a marriage proposal, which was perfectly reasonable. Calli’s father had been sent away because someone had to be punished for the death of a high lord’s son, and she was sure that most people would think that they had all been punished. Ser Ivan sent to the Wall, Archer made into the Hound’s squire, and Calli left behind as the Imp’s ward. Calli was just glad that Siobhan hadn’t been punished in any way.

“Mostly, we’re still freaking out over the fictional world thing,” Calli finished with.

“Are you still freaking out too?” Archer asked Siobhan.

“I’ve been conscious for the past several days, so I’ve had a little more time to think things over.” Siobhan looked between them, and a small smile curved her lips. “I’m still convinced that I’ll wake up any moment, either in the gym or in the afterlife.”

“I think this might be our afterlife,” Calli said quietly. This being their afterlife did make a twisted sort of sense. They died in one world and woke up in another.

“Which means that we should make the most of it,” Siobhan said and looked at each of them. Calli nodded slowly, and she looked down to see a wide grin spread across Archer’s face.

“Does that mean we can change things? Because I refuse to live through season eight.” When neither of them said anything right away, Archer looked between them and then schooled his face into a fierce glare. “I am being serious. I will march into Joffrey’s room right now and kill him while he sleeps if it means that awful season never happens.”

“You can’t kill Joffrey. You’ll be killed for sure,” Calli said quickly. Archer could be impulsive, but she felt mostly sure that he wouldn’t actually kill a kid. No matter what Joffrey was going to grow up to do.

“We also have to be careful about what we change. Change too much and Daenerys might never come to Westeros at all,” Siobhan added. The words sounded a little too weighted, and Calli felt her eyes narrowing as she studied her oldest friend.

“You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you? About what to change?” Archer asked her. He sounded excited, and something about it reminded her of the nights they had spent talking about the show and ways that things could have gone better.

“I haven’t had much else to do in the past few days,” Siobhan shrugged. That seemed reasonable enough, considering their circumstances.

“So what do we change?” Calli asked. There were so many things, so many theories, that it seemed impossible to choose.

“I think that we each have to pick a character and stay with them, and we can try to change as much as possible from there. There’s only three of us, so we’re limited on what we can do,” Siobhan stated. Calli exchanged a look with Archer and raised her brow in question, and Archer nodded once before looking at Siobhan again. Siobhan was holding something back, and she sighed as they continued to stare at her. “I want to leave Westeros, to advise Daenerys. I want to go to Pentos and be there before she’s promised to Drogo.”

“You’re going to save Drogo, right? Wait, you can’t save Drogo. If he lives, there’s no dragons,” Archer rattled out. His eyes were already looking brighter, and Calli reached out to run her fingers through his hair again as he bit at his lip. “This might be a bit tricky.”

“If my math is correct, we have a little less than two years before Jon Arryn dies,” Calli said after searching through two sets of memories.

“Enough time for us all to get stronger. I want to leave at least a year before the show started, because I know that Daenerys and Viserys will be in Pentos then,” Siobhan told them. It made sense. It would give her a year to get to know the last (known) Targaryens.

“Why Daenerys?” Calli asked. The three of them had discussed theories and favorite characters for years. While they all loved Daenerys and had been outraged by the way her story ended, Siobhan had always loved the Northerners and complained about not giving enough of them any screen time. So why would Siobhan want to go to Essos?

“Lord Kelstan Pyne might have been a horribly abusive father, but he did value education and intelligence. I started learning several languages at a young age and continued my education even after his death.” Siobhan paused there, and Calli didn’t rush her because she knew she must have been thinking about _how_ her father had died. “I can speak High Valyrian, Dothraki, and some Pentoshi. So I think that, in some strange way, that I’m supposed to go help Daenerys.”

“If she’s looking after Dany, I want to fight for the North,” Archer said and then turned to look up at her. Her fingers stalled in his hair, and her thumb brushed across his temple as she tried to read the look in his eyes.

“You want to fight for Robb Stark? Does that mean you want to die at the Red Wedding?” she asked him. All three of them had cried while watching Robb Stark die, and now that memory was mixing with her worries about Archer dying the same way.

“I want to stop the Red Wedding,” he told her. She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that he absolutely could not fight in a war, but it wasn’t her call to make. Archer was sixteen now, which meant that he would be eighteen when Jon Arryn died. In either life, he’d be an adult and old enough to make his own decisions.

“Then I want to stay with Tyrion and do everything I can to help him,” Calli decided. It wasn’t because he was her half-brother either. Tyrion had been her favorite character, and she had always thought that he could have used someone that was solely on his side.

“So, where do we start?” Archer asked them. Calli looked at Siobhan, who shrugged and then looked patiently at Calli.

“At the beginning.”

**TYRION**

A fortnight had passed since Callianna was moved into a room in the Red Keep, and Tyrion had only seen her a handful of instances in that time. There had been two memorable days where they ate dinner together, at a table in Callianna’s room. She told him stories about her time traveling throughout Westeros with Ser Ivan before they settled at King’s Landing, and the young woman was an excellent storyteller once she was relaxed. Her arms waved through the air as she acted out parts of her stories, and it had been lovely to hear so much laughter from her. Both nights, he had left with his steps a little lighter and with a smile on his face. A few times, he had stepped into her room to see Lady Siobhan and Lord Archer keeping her company. Those times, he only asked after her health and then left.

Two days ago, the last time he saw her, she had been alone when she called out for him to enter her room. He hadn’t seen her when he first walked in, but he had been able to see the unfiltered sunlight spilling into the room. He had found her at the very back of the room, seated on a small bench underneath an open window. Seeing her in loose breeches and tunics had become so commonplace that he no longer thought of it as odd, but he had been surprised to see her knitting with a soft smile on her face. When he had looked at the cloth pooled in her lap, she had told him that she making some new clothes to fill her new wardrobe. Then, to add to his surprise, she had agreed when he asked if he could buy her some pretty dresses to help her in her endeavor.

Today, he found himself surprised once again. He had entered when he heard her call out, and his first look around the room didn’t reveal her. The room itself was perfectly clean and nearly looked unlived in, so it was easy to move through the room. Callianna was sitting on the bench under the open window again, but she wasn’t sewing today. A sword was balanced across her lap, and she was carefully moving a whetstone down the length of it. She looked up as he walked closer and smiled at him, and he noticed the second sword propped up against the wall next to her. She had only been carrying a single sword the night that Lady Siobhan was attacked, but it looked as if she owned two. Now that he was thinking back, he remembered her carrying both swords while Jaime carried her trunk of clothes during their slow move into the Red Keep.

“Hello, Tyrion,” Callianna greeted with a smile. Her smooth motions never faltered, and all he could hear for a moment was the sound of stone against steel. She looked perfectly at ease with the sword in her hand, and he looked at the sword standing next to her. It was out of its sheath, and his eyes narrowed on the blade as he stepped closer.

“Is that Valyrian steel?” he asked her. It wasn’t a very proper greeting, but he was learning that his ward didn’t care much for being proper. Polite, yes, but not always proper. She looked away from her current task and over to the sword, and he saw the soft smile on her face as she reached out and touched the shining green stone in the sword’s hilt.

“It’s the Banefort family sword. My father gave it to me after the first time I disarmed him. I was fifteen.” There was a touch of pride in her voice, but her eyes were sad as she looked at him. He knew that her smiles were not purely for his benefit, that she was simply a kind person, but he also knew that she missed her father.

“Does it have a name?” There weren’t many Valyrian steel swords left in the world, and most of them had names. At the question, a rare look of amusement passed over her face before her expression settled into something a little more mild.

“Stormbringer.” She picked up her whetstone and continued sharpening her other sword, but her eyes flicked up to his after every other stroke. “Is this a quick visit or do you have time to talk?”

“I have time,” he told her. She waited as he grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it closer to where she was sitting on the bench, and he made sure that the chair was out of the direct sunlight. While she seemed to enjoy the feeling of the sun on her skin, he would rather avoid it. Once he was situated, she looked up at him with a serious expression.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think lately,” she started. He hummed a little but didn’t respond, and he watched as she carefully shifted on the bench. She moved the sword in her lap next to the Valyrian sword, so that they were propped up against the wall side-by-side. Then she reached for something on the floor, and he felt his brows rising in surprise as she placed two long daggers in her lap.

“How many weapons do you have?” he heard himself ask. Two swords and two daggers? He knew knights with less weaponry.

“Two swords and two daggers, that’s all. Although, I have considered getting a knife or two to wear in my boots,” she said thoughtfully. He didn’t bother with asking if all of that was necessary. Perhaps, if she had been better armed when Lady Siobhan was attacked, she wouldn’t still be moving so slowly and carefully.

“What have you been thinking on?” he asked her after she started sharpening the first dagger. The weapons themselves looked simple, but the blades looked wickedly sharp whenever the light glinted off the edges.

“I am really good at fighting. I’m not being vain or proud, just honest. My father trained me so that I could always protect myself, and he was a wonderful teacher. I have realized, very recently, that I will not always be able to fight.”

“What happened to you was horrible, but you will fight again.” She looked up at that and caught his eyes, and he didn’t like how surprised she looked. Like she hadn’t been expecting him to _want_ her to fight.

“I know that. I’m already getting stronger, every day, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never be injured again. I want to be more than just a fighter.” Her hands stilled, and he watched the way that her eyes lingered on the sharp blade in her lap.

“More?” he prompted. She looked at him again, and he caught himself thinking of the deep green color of her eyes as familiar.

“We had money, my father and I, but we always lived simply. Before, I was content to spend each day training my body. I think that I have been neglecting my best weapon though,” she said and smiled just a little. One corner of her lips pulled upwards into a smile, but her expression shifted into a full smile when he continued to look at her in confusion.

“Forgive me, dear lady, but I am afraid that I don’t follow,” he told her.

“A person’s greatest weapon is their mind. I learned how to read and how to write, but I’ve never spent much time reading. I’d like to change that, and I’d like your help. If you don’t mind,” she said quickly. When he offered to take her in, he knew that they would have to spend some time together. He never thought that she would be the one to seek his company however.

He asked her what she wanted, and he was surprised at how much thought she had put into her request. She wanted to start reading the histories, and she had heard about his love of reading. As she asked to read some of his favorite books, she looked nearly shy. Then when she wanted to know if they could discuss the books afterwards, in an effort to help her understanding of what she had read, she had looked nearly nervous. His sudden laughter hadn’t helped with that. The poor girl’s face had turned into a shocking shade of red, and he had rushed to assure her that he wasn’t mocking her. He explained that he had just been surprised and then delighted, to have someone that he could talk with about his favorite books. Her smile then had completely transformed her, made her look so young and carefree, and she had sounded excited when she asked when they could start.

After that, the two of them spoke at length about the books he’d read in his younger years as well as his more recent reads. They talked about the histories of Westeros and Essos, the stories that had become legends, and he loved it when she relaxed enough to excitedly ask questions. Even if she hadn’t read much, she was very capable of intelligent conversation. She asked questions and then listened attentively to the answers, and she was never afraid of telling him when she didn’t understand something. The longer they talked, the more at ease they both became. The sunlight moved across the floor as they continued to speak, until it started to fade altogether. When a servant came into the room with dinner, they were both surprised at the late hour. Instead of asking him to leave, she offered him a seat at her table so that they could continue their discussion. So they ate as they talked and laughed, and it was such an enjoyable way to spend time that he was reluctant to leave after the table had been cleared away.

“I have to admit, it’s still odd to have people bring me food and then clean it away. I’ve always done it myself,” Callianna said as she relaxed against her seat.

“You don’t like having servants?” he asked her. She was relaxed, but there had been a hint of discomfort in her tone as she spoke.

“I can still remember being one.” He remembered what Ser Ivan had told him, about how she had been his bastard daughter and that her first years had been spent inside of a tavern. He looked down as he recalled that conversation, so he was a little startled when her hand suddenly appeared and grabbed his. His eyes raised even though he kept his head tilted down, and her smile was small as their eyes met. “You know my history. That I wasn’t born to Ser Ivan’s wife, that I was a bastard.”

“Ser Ivan told me that he didn’t know about you until after the Rebellion, and that your mother had passed by then,” he admitted. Her eyes were sad even as she continued to smile, and he wondered what had happened in her life that she had taught herself to smile even while saddened.

“There were raiders during the Rebellion, and they attacked my grandfather’s tavern. He was able to hide and keep himself safe, but my mother wasn’t as fortunate.” Her free hand raised to press over her chest, and he thought for a moment that she was resting her hand over her heart in grief. Until he realized that she was pressing against the right side of her chest, and her shirt was just loose enough for him to see the start of a shining white line carved into her skin.

“You were attacked as well,” he realized. She nodded slowly, and he saw more of the scar on the right side of her chest after both of her hands were folded in her lap. “How old were you?”

“Seven. One of the men tried to grab me, but I struggled. He must have thought I wasn’t worth the trouble and tried to kill me, and I found a knife on the ground.” She stopped there, but he didn’t need her to continue. He could read what had happened in her eyes. She had killed the man, when she was still a child. “When my father came to the tavern after the Rebellion, he realized that he had gotten my mother pregnant and took me in. He had already given the seat at Stormcliffe to his younger brother then, his brother had three trueborn sons at that point, so that’s why we traveled. I never lived in a castle or had servants.”

“Would you be happier in a smaller home?” He enjoyed his ward’s company and having her nearby was convenient, but he wouldn’t force her to live at the Red Keep.

“I’m not sure that I’m ready to give up our talks, or if I’m ready to live on my own,” she said with another small smile.

“Perhaps we can look into getting a small house here in the city. Close enough that you can still visit with Lady Siobhan and Lord Archer,” he suggested. He knew that she was close to both of them, that she thought of the Hound’s new squire as a brother and that she had risked her life to save Lady Siobhan. He wouldn’t want to take her away from them, not after she had already lost her father to the Night’s Watch.

“I can’t ask you to do that for me,” she said after a moment.

“Truth be told, living outside of this place wouldn’t be a hardship. Perhaps you can even teach me to live without servants,” he teased only to realize he was serious. What would it be like to only be dependent on himself? It would be something new, something different. Maybe not some kind of grand adventure, like in his books, but a much smaller challenge.

“Once I regain my strength, we can think on it some more,” she promised. She still moved stiffly and slowly, but she was looking healthier with each passing day. He didn’t think it would be long before she was back at her full strength. For now, the night was growing later and she needed her rest. So he pushed himself away from the table and got to his feet.

“First book tomorrow?” he asked her. He saw her arms tense as she pushed herself up, and her jaw tightened as she forced her spine straight. It wasn’t long before she was smiling at him again though, and he marveled again at the strength she possessed.

“I’ll look forward to your visit,” she told him.

“Goodnight, Callianna.”

“Goodnight, Tyrion.”

**CALLI**

Sweat dripped from the end of her nose as she held her position, and she felt a slight breeze slip across the room from her open window. It wasn’t much, but even the slight bit of wind felt heavenly against her exposed skin. She’d been at the Red Keep for a month now, and she had only just started leaving her room about a week ago. She hadn’t been able to go very far, but she’d gone on walks with Siobhan and Archer whenever he wasn’t with Clegane. Despite the few visits and even fewer walks, they hadn’t talked much since her first night in the castle. Mostly, they just enjoyed the familiarity of being in each other’s presence. That night, what now felt like forever ago, they had decided to wait before figuring out what to do in their new reality. They wanted to wait until they felt a little more settled and had plenty of time to sort through their memories before coming up with detailed plans, but Calli knew that it was nearly time for them to have the big talk. Until then, she had been slowly getting her physical strength back. As of two weeks ago, she had started reading about the history of Westeros and talking over the stories with Tyrion. Speaking of, “Come in!”

“What are you doing?” The voice didn’t belong to Tyrion, who she had been expecting. He had promised to bring her a new book today, which was why she had called out for the person knocking to come in. The voice was masculine, so it wasn’t Siobhan and the voice was a little deeper than Archer’s usual playful tone.

“Practicing my balance and strengthening my arms,” she answered. She had carefully braided her hair and secured it at her nape, and she had stripped off her loose shirt so that it wouldn’t get in her way. She’d been carefully balancing on her hands with her toes pointed at the ceiling for quite a while now, and her eyes scanned her upside-down surroundings as footsteps sounded closer. Within moments, she was looking at shining boots and then staring up at Jaime Lannister.

“You look ridiculous,” he told her. It was hard to tell, but she thought he was smiling.

“Jealous that you can’t do it?” The words seemed to slip out of her, and she blamed Tyrion. She had gotten far too used to letting her guard down around him, and now she was slipping with the wrong Lannister.

“How difficult can it be to stand on your hands?” He sounded like he was teasing her, which was not the response that she was expecting. So while he was watching, she shifted her weight onto her left hand and raised her right arm up.

“For me? Not difficult at all,” she admitted. This was something she had done in her other life, for the exact reasons that she had stated. It helped with her balance and kept her arms strong, and that was something that was important in this life too. She owned two swords because her father had taught her to fight equally as well with both hands, and she had to stay strong to be able to swing swords with both hands. “For you, I’m guessing it would be very difficult.”

“Doesn’t look like any kind of challenge,” he said and stepped even closer. He poked at her shin, and she felt her legs sway a little before she was able to right herself. Once she was properly balanced again, she curved her spine and carefully returned her feet to the floor. Her stomach and ribs ached a little as she stood upright again, and she closed her eyes for a moment as her body reoriented itself. After she felt settled again, she opened her eyes and looked straight across at Jaime.

“Why do I have the honor of your presence today?” she asked him. She hadn’t seen Jaime since he carried up her trunk of clothes, and she hadn’t expected to see him again until she started mingling with the people in the Red Keep.

“Tyrion asked me to tell you that he wouldn’t be able to visit until dinner,” he said as his eyes swept over her. The look didn’t make her feel uncomfortable, because there wasn’t any heat in his eyes. He merely looked curious as he looked at the exposed healing injuries across her torso. “Did standing like that really cause you so much strain?”

“Strain?” she asked and looked down at herself. The skin over the stab wounds in her stomach were dark and puckered, but the skin itself was still whole. The same was true of the long slice across her ribcage. Her skin was slicked with sweat though. “Oh, no. I was training earlier. There isn’t much room in here, so I had to get creative.”

“Training? With a sword?” he asked as he looked behind her. Both of her swords were laid out across the table behind her, where she had left them after she decided to stretch and exercise a little.

“With both swords,” she admitted. In her other life, she had loved being ambidextrous. Had loved that she could easily switch from using her right fist as her dominant hand to her left so that she could catch her opponents off-guard. In this life, she could easily wield a sword with either hand and had been slowly perfecting dual wielding.

“Are you any good?” _Jaime Lannister_ asked her. If it had been anyone else asking, she would have said that she was more than good. He was one of the greatest swordsmen in Westeros though.

“Not as good as you,” she said honestly. Jaime’s lips pulled down into a pronounced frown, and she realized that he was now looking directly into her eyes.

“I’m disappointed. Tyrion’s been telling me that you don’t follow proper societal expectations, that you’re more of the honest sort. Yet, here you are, trying to flatter me.” Huh. He honestly thought that she was being polite?

“I am being honest, Ser Jaime. I’ve heard stories of your abilities, of what you can do with a sword.” As his hand moved to lightly touch against the hilt of the sword on his hip, she thought about his future. “Can you fight with your left hand?”

“Of course I can,” he said automatically. She remembered watching him struggle to train his left hand to properly wield a sword, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying anything that would get her into trouble.

“As well as you can with your right?” she asked instead. He hesitated as he looked down at where he was still gripping his sword, and she saw his jaw tighten as he thought. After a moment, he looked up at her and raised a brow as he looked at where her swords were lying.

“You can fight equally well with both hands?” he finally asked.

“I can,” she answered with just a little bit of pride.

“Show me.” It wasn’t a request, but she knew that she could refuse. She had rarely left her room at all, but she suddenly wanted to feel the sun on her skin as she held a sword in each hand. Wanted the freedom to move, to fight, without worrying about accidentally destroying her furniture.

“There isn’t enough room here.”

“Then get dressed and we’ll see what you can do.”

**TYRION**

When Tyrion reached Callianna’s room, thankfully much earlier than he had anticipated, he found a servant waiting for him just outside of her door. The young woman quietly told him that she had been instructed to tell him that the Lady Callianna had left with Ser Jaime for the training grounds, and Tyrion had managed to thank the girl through his confusion before immediately turning around. He had run into his brother on his way to a meeting with a smith, and he had asked him to tell Callianna that he would be late meeting with her. He had talked to his brother at length about his ward, and he was so sure that the two of them would get along if they could just talk to one another. Jaime never seemed to have time to himself however, but he had claimed to have the rest of the day free when Tyrion ran into him. He had even promised to pass the message along; Tyrion had hoped that the two of them would talk, but he couldn’t imagine why they would be in the training grounds. Callianna had only just started leaving her room to walk in the gardens.

As he approached the training grounds, he made note of the young men that seemed posted around the perimeter and at the obvious lack of noise that usually came from the area. Once he reached the open area, he realized the reason behind the sentries and the quiet. Only two figures were moving across the grass, and he could hear the loud laughter even from how far away he was. Jaime had traded his Kingsguard armor for something much more average, and Callianna was wearing armor that looked similar. Neither of them were wearing helmets, which made it easier to hear their echoing laughter as their swords clashed. It took Tyrion a moment to realize what seemed off about the scene, other than his knighted brother fighting against his female ward. They were both wielding swords with their _left_ hands, and Callianna had the upper hand.

“You need to stop thinking so much!” Callianna called out as she swung again. She was fast, so fast that Jaime just barely raised his own sword in time to block her.

“You need to stop talking so much!” Jaime replied and struck. Jaime’s strikes had more power behind them, but Callianna had the greater speed. After Callianna blocked another strike and then stopped her sword at Jaime’s neck, they both spotted him. To his surprise, they were both grinning as they straightened up and turned to face him.

“I see that you two are getting along!” Tyrion yelled as he started to walk towards them. As he got closer, he made note of the red flush on their faces and the way that sweat had darkened their hair as it slicked across their skin. They must have been outside for quite some time.

“You didn’t tell me that your ward was a dual wielder,” Jaime accused. His tone was teasing though, and Tyrion looked at Callianna in surprise.

“I didn’t know,” he admitted. He knew that she had two swords, but he assumed that she fought with only one and then kept the Valyrian sword as a family heirloom.

“She can fight with either hand without sacrificing skill,” Jaime told him.

“I’ve offered to help him train his left hand, in return for him training me as well,” Callianna said and looked at him with a guarded expression. Over the past weeks, she had become more comfortable with him but still appeared nervous whenever they talked about her fighting. As if he would disapprove.

“It seems to me as if you don’t need any further training,” he teased before looking at Jaime. Instead of looking upset or defensive, his brother smirked in the cocky way that Tyrion had witnessed since he was a boy.

“Would you like to show him?” Callianna asked Jaime.

“Only if you can handle defeat,” Jaime said. As the two of them stepped back away from each other, Tyrion took several steps back so that they would have plenty of room.

Callianna pulled the sword still sheathed at her hip as Jaime switched his own sword to his right hand, and Tyrion watched as Callianna easily shifted into a fighting stance with a sword in each hand. At first, the two of them simply stared at one another as if daring the other to move. After a long tense moment, Callianna advanced. She was quick even while wielding two swords, but it soon became obvious that Jaime was the superior swordsman while using his right hand. He wasn’t sure how she was able to keep her two blades from tangling together as she moved, but both swords seemed like an extension of herself as she fought. Even with her obvious skill, Jaime was able to push her back. Her right sword was knocked from her grip first, and she easily switched her left sword to her right hand before Jaime could strike again.

“Took you longer that time!” Callianna yelled with a laugh. Tyrion caught sight of Jaime’s wide grin before he was pushing forward again, and Callianna was able to hold him off for several long minutes. Still, the fight ended as the point of Jaime’s sword stopped above the exposed front of Callianna’s throat. Her own sword was pressed against his side, where his armor protected him.

“There might be hope for her yet!” Jaime told him as Tyrion approached them again. He noticed the slight wince as Callianna returned the sword she was still holding to her hip, and he worried that she had reopened her wounds. That was why he reached down to pick up her fallen sword and handed it to her with a smile before looking at his brother again.

“Does that mean you’re going to train her?” Tyrion asked him. He remembered his brother’s surprise at hearing that Tyrion would use a woman as a guard, but it seemed as if Jaime was impressed with his young ward.

“If she can keep up,” Jaime said and looked directly at Callianna.

“I look forward to the challenge,” she said and grinned. For a moment, as the two of them looked at each other with playful smiles in the dying sunlight, Tyrion tried to imagine what his life might have been like with a sister like Callianna. With someone who could let herself be soft while still remaining strong. The moment was broken as Callianna blinked sweat from her eyes and looked down at him, and he could tell that her breathing was coming a little heavier than it should as she smiled at him and prepared to speak. “Are we still dining together tonight?”

“We are,” he said and nodded once. Her smile brightened, as if she had been looking forward to his company, and he watched with amusement as she faced Jaime and mimed a curtesy.

“It has been an honor, Ser Jaime,” she said while holding the deep curtesy in her ill-fitting armor. Without missing a beat, Jaime bent himself into an equally deep bow.

“Until we meet again, Lady Callianna,” he told her and then looked up to wink. Tyrion had seen women, highborn and lowborn alike, fall over themselves at merely a look from his handsome brother. Callianna pressed her hand against her unblushing cheek in a false swoon and then smoothly turned on her heel to start walking away from the training grounds.

“I’ll wash up and wait for you!” she called back to him.

“I won’t be long!” he promised her. He watched her hand wave in the air as she continued to walk away, and he listened as Jaime stepped up beside him to watch as she disappeared.

“Your ward is definitely something different,” Jaime told him. As a squire appeared to remove his training armor, Jaime told him about how he had found Callianna earlier that afternoon. Tyrion knew that she had been doing little things around her room to strengthen herself, but he couldn’t really picture the young woman standing on her hands without a shirt on.

“I believe she is growing restless,” Tyrion mused aloud. Jaime’s Kingsguard armor wasn’t placed on him, and he watched his brother roll his shoulders once he was dressed down in only a tunic.

“I meant what I said about training her. She’s strong, quick, with good instincts. She might be a woman, but I think she could stand against almost any knight. With some more teaching, she might one day be almost as good as me,” Jaime said and smiled down at him. The two of them were walking out of the training grounds now, into the Red Keep, and the halls were empty as the night grew darker.

“And what she said about training you?” he asked curiously. He had seen for himself that she could outfight Jaime when he was fighting left-handed, and he knew his brother well enough to know that his pride wouldn’t allow something like that.

“Any decent swordsman can use either hand,” Jaime said first. As his brother slowed to a stop, Tyrion stopped with him and looked up at him. Jaime was looking at his outstretched left hand, and his fingers slowly curled inwards into a tight fist. “I am much better than any decent swordsman.”

“I knew you would like her,” Tyrion declared with a grin.

“Goodnight, little brother,” Jaime said instead of replying. No reply was just as good as an admittance of how right Tyrion was, so he didn’t press the point. He returned the parting words and then turned to go up to his room.

He thought of the man that he had spoken to that morning as he climbed the stairs to his room, and he went over everything that he had been told so that he could repeat it all to Callianna over dinner. After entering his room, he grabbed an empty leather satchel and grabbed the book sitting on one of the low tables in his room. It was one of his more recent books, that detailed the newest medical practices in both Westeros and Essos, and he slipped it inside the satchel. Callianna had mentioned wanting to learn more about how to spot sicknesses and heal ailments, and he thought she might enjoy the book. Then he removed the long pouch from inside his vest and slipped it inside the bag as well. The smith had been very accommodating and quick, and he was looking forward to seeing Callianna’s face when she saw the present he had gotten for her.

It took only a matter of minutes for him to walk from his room to hers, and he passed a servant in the hall leading to her room. He had thought about getting a handmaiden for his ward, but he didn’t think she would feel comfortable with a handmaiden that would only see to her needs. She already seemed uncomfortable with the servants who brought her food, and he had overheard a few servants talking about how they never had to clean Lady Callianna’s room. That she made her own bed and even emptied her own chamberpots. He knew that at least one of the women had found it odd, while the two she had been talking to had praised his ward. He was also aware that the servants sometimes argued over who got to tend to Lady Callianna, because all she required was meals since she took care of the rest herself. He was thinking over those words and smiling to himself as he knocked on her door, and he heard her call out for him to come in.

“Tyrion! Perfect timing! The food just arrived!” he heard her call out. The small table in her room was indeed covered with dishes, and he could hear her moving farther in the room. As he took his usual seat at the table, she emerged from the back of the room with her fingers still moving through her hair. She was wearing her usual loose breeches and tunic, and she was quickly braiding her hair in a simple style.

“Are you feeling well?” he asked her. As she sat down across from him, her hand pressed against her side and he noticed the tight expression on her face. Her eyes met his, and her smile looked almost sheepish.

“I am a little sore,” she admitted. He must have looked concerned or possibly worried because she rushed to reassure, “I’m not hurt and I didn’t injure myself further. It’s just been a little too long since I properly trained, but it’s not a bad feeling. My body might be aching, but my mind has been soothed. At least now I know that I can still swing a sword.”

“Well enough to stand against Jaime,” he said. He watched as color rose into her pale cheeks, and she looked away to start preparing herself a plate. A wink from his handsome brother elicited no reaction, but she blushed at hearing a bit of praise?

“He’s a better fighter than the stories say. Even if he decides not to train me, today was an honor,” she said once he had started to serve himself.

As they began to eat, he asked her about her day. He had already heard the story from Jaime, but he wanted to hear it from her side as well. She told him about how limited she had been while training in her room, and that she had sat her swords aside to train her body instead. She explained how she had been working on her balance when she had heard someone knock at her door, and that she had believed it to be him and had called out for whoever was at her door to come in. Slight embarrassment returned to her features when she talked about realizing she had been wrong, that it was actually the other Lannister brother in her room, but her smile returned as she recounted the ensuing conversation. Jaime had been his usual self, but most people mistook his teasing for malice. Callianna, it seemed, had recognized that his brother had only been teasing her and not trying to anger her. It explained why Jaime had offered to accompany her to the training grounds, and Tyrion was sure that Jaime would keep his word to continue training her.

 _“Jaime as a teacher. Next, Cersei will adopt an orphan,”_ he thought as the dinner came to an end. He had eaten his fill, and he had hid his smile at his ward’s appetite behind his glass. She had been eating small portions, but it seemed as if fighting at the training grounds had caused her appetite to return in full. It was a good sign, that she was getting stronger.

“How was your day?” she asked him. Even after the meal was finished, she never rushed him from her room. Their talks usually continued until she started to struggle to keep her eyes open.

“Busy,” he admitted with a smile. At her raised brow, he lowered the cup he was still holding onto the table and then continued. “There is a small manse, here in the city, that is going to be vacant very soon. The family is leaving for the Riverlands and would like to leave their home in good hands.”

“Good hands?” she asked in a clearly surprised tone. Her eyes were wide, but her expression was mostly blank so he couldn’t tell if she hated the idea or not.

“I didn’t give the man an answer, but he did say that he would give us a tour tomorrow. Unless you wish to remain here?” he asked her. She blinked rapidly for a moment before giving him a small smile, but he still couldn’t tell her feelings about leaving the Red Keep.

“A tour sounds like a good idea. I think we’ll know for sure once we’re standing inside if it’s meant to be our home.” She was still smiling, and he thought she might be feeling reluctant to leave her friends. Lady Siobhan lived here at the Red Keep, as did Lord Archer. Maybe she would consider moving once she realized how close the manse was to the palace, and he would have to reassure her that she was free to do as she wished and would be able to visit her friends whenever she wanted.

“Excellent idea, dear lady.” This time her smile was softer, warmer, and he returned it before bending down to retrieve his leather satchel from the floor. He got it settled in his lap and carefully opened it to remove the pouch from inside, and he slid the long pouch across the table.

“What’s this?” she asked as she reached for it.

“You graciously consented to seeing a dressmaker,” he started. Then he remembered talking to a very excited man the day before and quickly added, “Who should be here tomorrow morning. We can tour the manse afterwards.”

“You didn’t have to go to the trouble. Any dress would be fine,” she told him again.

“It’s no trouble, I assure you. I just thought you might enjoy a more useful gift as well,” he said and made a point of looking at the pouch. Her fingertips were pressed against the cord holding the pouch closed, but she hadn’t moved to look inside yet.

“I haven’t done anything to earn a gift,” she said as her eyes held his. He followed his instincts and reached across the table, and her hand easily held onto his. As always, he marveled at the rough feeling of the skin of her palms. She didn’t have the soft hands of pampered ladies. Calluses from gripping a sword and working with her hands were clearly evident. So he tightened his grip on her hand and held her gaze.

“Gifts are not earned, Callianna. They are freely given,” he told her. _Out of love and admiration_ , he thought but didn’t say. Over their dinners and easy conversations, he had come to admire his young ward and sometimes thought of her as family. She was young and beautiful, yes, but he had never once thought of bedding her. He only wanted to see her happy, as a way to repay the happiness she had given him whenever she smiled so freely and genuinely at just being able to spend time with him.

Even now, as they held hands on top of the small table where they had shared dinner, he could only marvel at how genuine her smile was. Like she would be perfectly happy just to spend time with him, only talking. As she dipped her chin in acceptance and pulled her hand away to reach for the pouch, he thought of the way that Ser Ivan had looked at his daughter and then at the young lord he had taken as a ward. His love and worry for them had looked equal, as if his ward was his family as well. Tyrion wanted that, a sense of family with his own ward. Because she was kind and intelligent and strong. So he watched as she opened the pouch and slowly pulled out his two gifts with a hopeful feeling. Her eyes widened as she got her first real look, and she looked stunned as she looked across at him.

“How did you…You made these for me?” she asked quietly.

“Well, I paid someone else to actually make them, but yes,” he answered.

One night, their discussion had turned to weapons. He had told her that he never had much interest in fighting, that had always been Jaime’s passion, and he had asked her about her favorite weapons. They had talked about the more practical swords that most knights carried to all of the unlikely things that could be used to kill, he had laughed himself to tears when she told a story about her father fighting off a robber with nothing but a fork during their travels, but there was one particular weapon that had stuck out to him. A knife, small with sharp edges into an even sharper point, with a ring at the end of the hilt. She had even sketched out the design, and he had been surprised at how skilled she was. Her simple sketch had looked so realistic that he had kept it, and then he had given it to the smith with instructions to make two identical knives. He had once asked if she had enough weapons, after observing her two swords and two daggers, and she had said then that she had considered getting a couple of knives as well.

“I don’t know how I can ever repay you,” she said and then looked at the knives again. Her fingers traced over the simple hilts, the rings at the top, and she smiled as a finger hooked into one of the rings.

“The pleasure of your company is more than enough,” he assured her. She looked across at him again, and he had to look away from the wet shine over her eyes. When he didn’t look up, she was the one to reach out and grab his hand. The move worked, because he looked up as soon her fingers laced through his.

“Thank you, Tyrion, for everything,” she told him. He didn’t think he had ever been thanked so much in his life until Callianna, but he couldn’t make himself wave the words away this time.

“We’re in this life together,” he said and then stopped. He wasn’t sure how to put everything he had been feeling into words, and he felt her slightly squeeze his hand to recapture his full attention.

“And we’ll take care of each other. Always,” she promised.

After they spent several minutes admiring the new knives, he passed over the book he had brought for her. She thanked him once again as she took the book, but her gratitude was interrupted by a long yawn. Her day was starting to catch up with her, so they quickly went over their plans for the next day. The dressmaker would visit first, to get her measurements and so that she could pick out designs, and they would leave afterwards. The manse they would be touring was close by, and they would be able to walk and still make it there before too late in the day. Callianna walked him to the door once they had everything sorted, and he paused just outside of her door and turned to look at her. Her eyes were tired as she looked at him, but she looked healthier now than she had her first day in the Red Keep.

“Sleep well, dear lady.”

“Until tomorrow, Tyrion.”

**CALLI**

After closing the door behind Tyrion, Calli slumped forwards against the heavy wood and pressed her cheek against it as her eyes closed. The day had certainly taken its toll on her, both physically and mentally. She knew that she couldn’t push her body too far too fast; it was already a miracle that nothing vital had been damaged in the fight or that she hadn’t caught some kind of infection, and she didn’t want to injure herself more just because she couldn’t be patient. That being said, she hadn’t been able to resist fighting against Jaime Lannister. Which was where the mental exhaustion had started, because she had goaded Jaime into learning to fight better with his left hand. She had thought ending the day with Tyrion would be soothing, but it had just left her reeling instead. A home in the city and the new knives had been a shock, but she couldn’t shake the way that he looked at her. Like she was something special, someone special. The part of her that knew she was his sister rejoiced at the ease they had with each other, but the part of her that had enjoyed his character on a television show was still freaking out just a little.

The sound of a loud knock startled her, sore muscles went tense as she pulled herself up to stand straight, and a quiet groan slipped past her lips. Training had felt good in the moment, but she was sure that she was going to pay for it in the morning if she was already feeling this sore. The knock came again when she didn’t answer, and she locked her jaw as she cracked the door open. She saw Archer’s grinning face first, and she looked to the side to see Siobhan looking at her expectantly. With a small smile, she opened the door wider and stepped to the side so that they could both walk inside. Archer walked in first and only paused long enough to press a kiss against her cheek before moving into her room, but Siobhan stopped next to her and waited for her to close the door. Then, just to be extra careful, she bolted the door so that a servant or anyone else wouldn’t be able to enter. Because if Archer and Siobhan were both here this late, that had to mean it was finally time.

“You look tired,” Siobhan said quietly. Her eyes, such a dark brown that they appeared black, quickly looked her over from her hastily braided hair to her bare feet.

“It’s been an interesting day,” Calli admitted and carefully turned around.

“Can’t wait to hear all about it,” Siobhan told her and then started walking. By the time Calli reached her bed, Archer and Siobhan were already sitting on it. She pulled herself up onto the mattress so that they were sitting in a circle in the middle of the bed and crossed her legs, and the three of them looked at each other in silence. Because how were they supposed to even begin talking about this?

“I convinced Jaime Lannister to start training with his left hand,” was how Calli decided to start. She could have started with the bigger news, about going to look at her possibly new home in the city with Tyrion the next day, or she could have mentioned that Tyrion had a pair of ring knives specially crafted for her. When she had opened her mouth though, she started with her bizarre moment with Jaime.

“You didn’t tell him it was just in case he ever lost his right hand, did you?” Siobhan asked her with a single raised brow. Archer snorted out a laugh and then ducked his head to avoid Calli’s glare, and she gripped her ankles as she thought over her day.

“Of course I didn’t. When he discovered that I could dual wield, I think it challenged his pride a little,” she told them. When they just continued to look at her in anticipation, she smiled to herself and started telling them about her day. From Jaime walking in on her while she was exercising and all the way until her after dinner conversation with Tyrion.

“Here I thought my day was interesting because Clegane said I could take some time to apprentice for a smith,” Archer said and then grinned at her.

“You’re going to apprentice for a blacksmith?” Calli asked in slight confusion.

“Not just any blacksmith. I’ll be learning from Master Tobho Mott,” he said proudly. Calli felt her brows drawing together in growing confusion, because the name didn’t mean anything to her.

“You’ll be working with Gendry,” Siobhan said with a hint of excitement. Archer grinned as he nodded, and Calli felt realization flood through her. Back in their other life, Archer had loved mechanical work. Had loved building things. Him working as a smith wasn’t too much of a surprise, but working alongside Gendry?

“How did you manage that?” Calli asked him.

“I told Clegane that I was interested in learning how to smith, so he kindly asked the best smith in the city to teach me,” he explained. He was still grinning as he talked, and Calli tried to imagine the Hound kindly asking for anything. She knew that he was a good man, in his own way, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little rough around the edges.

“At least you two are doing something proactive. I am to meet a lady from the Vale tomorrow and introduce her to the city, as requested by Lady Lysa Arryn,” Siobhan said and then rolled her eyes. When Calli and Archer both tried to suppress their laughter at imagining Siobhan talking with Lysa Arryn, Siobhan cut her eyes at both of them before settling her gaze on Calli. “The day after, I expect to introduce her to Lady Callianna.”

“I’ll leave my schedule open,” Calli quickly promised. Siobhan had always hated societal expectations, so Calli could only imagine how frustrated she was at being cooped up in the palace with all of the other ladies. That seemed to appease Siobhan, because her tense posture relaxed and then she looked at both of them.

“I think we should start with our memories. Does anyone remember anything that didn’t happen in the show? Since you two were too lazy to read the books,” Siobhan teased. Archer huffed but then pointedly raised his hand, and he waited until they were both looking at him before speaking.

“When I was ten and before my grandmother got sick, we traveled to Bear Island. Grandmother considered Maege Mormont as her only true friend, and she wanted me to meet Maege and her family. I met all of her daughters, and I mean _all_ of them. Dacey, Alysane, Lyra, Jorelle, and little Lyanna Mormont was only a few months old. Jorelle and I are the same age, and I have never seen so many fierce women in one room,” Archer rambled out. His eyes had a faraway look to them, like he was remembering meeting all of them, and Calli was a tiny bit jealous. Lyanna Mormont had been amazing on the show, but her and Archer had sat through dozens of rants from Siobhan about how the rest of the Mormont family should have had screen adaptations.

“Focus, Archie,” Calli said and reached out to pull on a lock of dark hair. Archer slapped her hand away with a bright smile, and he leaned forward to get a little closer to them.

“They had a guest with them, who had already been there for a few years. Lord Erich Baratheon, third born son of Steffon and Cassana Baratheon. I think King Robert’s third brother is a change,” Archer said and raised a brow.

“Third born? So younger than Robert and Stannis, but older than Renly,” Calli realized aloud.

“That’s…strange.” When Calli and Archer turned to look at her, Siobhan explained. “I know we all wrote fanfiction, so I don’t want any judgment from the two of you.”

“Promise,” Calli said while Archer nodded along.

“I used to write about another Baratheon brother, one that didn’t want to be king and survived the war. Because I wanted Gendry to have at least one surviving blood relative. I never used the name Erich though,” she said and then reached up to start idly twirling a lock of hair around her finger. It was something that she only did when she was too lost in thought to stop herself, and Callianna knew that it was her turn to start talking.

“My father and I stopped at the Vale during our travels, and we attended a small tourney for baby Waymar Royce. Well, he was turning seven and I was only twelve at the time, so I guess calling him a baby isn’t fair.” Oh, now she was starting to ramble like Archer. That was never a good sign.

“Baby Waymar?” Siobhan prompted.

“While we were there, I spent most of my time with his slightly older sister. Ehlena Royce. I know that Waymar had older brothers on the show, that was why he joined the Watch, but I don’t remember any Royce women,” she said as she thought back to the Vale. She had enjoyed being so high up, and little Ehlena Royce had been a few years younger than her and had enjoyed showing her the best places to climb.

“Ehlena Royce is the lady from the Vale that’s coming tomorrow,” Siobhan said quietly. Her hair slipped from her finger, and she immediately started twirling it again.

“I wrote about a Royce daughter, usually with Mya Stone as her closest friend. Because I love Baratheon bastards and giving Sansa friends,” Archer told them.

“What’s different for you?” Calli asked Siobhan. Only the end of a lock of dark red hair was wrapped around her finger now, and her dark eyes were wide as she looked at Calli.

“I’ve met the Tyrells, on several occasions. Loras and Margaery, of course, but also their older brothers and a younger sister. Willas and Garlan are at least in the books, but Rhea Tyrell isn’t,” Siobhan said without looking away from Calli. Siobhan had written about a Baratheon brother while Archer had written about a Royce daughter, which left Calli.

“I wrote about a younger Tyrell daughter, one that would marry Tommen so that Margaery wouldn’t die,” Calli confirmed.

“This is going to be such a mess,” Siobhan sighed and echoed Calli’s thoughts.

“Without a doubt,” Archer agreed. He ran his hands across his thighs, a little tic that showed he was feeling restless, and Calli reached over to grab the hand closest to her. “We can go season by season, but I don’t see the point. Before Ned Stark is beheaded, I’m going to leave King’s Landing so that I can fight with Robb. I’m going to do everything I can to keep him alive and stop the Red Wedding, assuming that I survive for that long.”

“I’m going to stay with Tyrion. If I survive all of the fighting, I’m going to let Joffrey die and then help Tyrion escape before his trial by combat. Maybe, that way, Oberyn will survive. I don’t want to take him to Meereen though. If Daenerys is going to have Siobhan advising her, she won’t need Tyrion. I think he’d do better in the North, against that fight,” Calli said and looked at Siobhan.

“Take him to Bear Island. That’s where I’ll go if things take a turn for the worst with Robb,” Archer told her.

“Why Bear Island?” Calli asked.

“Because the Mormonts are loyal to the North, to the Starks, without fail. If we’re loyal to the Starks, they should shelter us,” Archer reasoned. Calli nodded at that, it was the only plan they had at the moment, and then turned to look at Siobhan.

“I’ll help Daenerys through everything and try to prepare her, but I think there’s one thing that we really should change. If either of you are able, we’ll need to convince Jon not to capture a wight to take to King’s Landing. If that’s not possible, then I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Daenerys doesn’t go after them with all of her dragons,” Siobhan said.

“To stop the Night King from getting Viserion,” Calli reasoned. Archer’s brows raised in surprise, but he remained silent.

“They’ll still get past the Wall, either by going around it after the water freezes or just by climbing over it, but it’ll take longer. It’ll give everyone more time to prepare,” Siobhan pointed out. More time would certainly be useful, and it would definitely be more helpful if the undead army didn’t also have a dragon on their side.

“Here’s hoping we all live that long,” Archer said as he squeezed her hand and reached out for Siobhan.

“We will,” Calli hoped as Siobhan grabbed Archer’s hand. When Siobhan extended her free hand, Calli slid their palms together and held on with a smile.

“We already survived in this reality once. I don’t see why we can’t keep doing it,” Siobhan shrugged. Archer laughed at that, loud and free, and Calli felt like her own laughter was being pulled out of her. Siobhan joined in, which was rare, but it felt good to laugh with her friends. They had, at most, one year left together before Siobhan would leave them so they needed to enjoy this for as long as they could.

**NADEEN**

Most of the time, Nadeen didn’t mind being a servant. It was the only life that she had ever known, and she usually went about her days without complaint. The previous fortnight, however, had been torturously long. Most of the ladies from the Vale let her go about her duties, but Lady Lysa was a very particular woman. Nadeen had been sent back and forth so many times that her feet had cracked and bled, and she believed that was why the others had taken pity on her. Because for the next fortnight, she was assigned to Lady Callianna. It was a covetous assignment, for several reasons. Lady Callianna was in a part of the Keep away from all of the other ladies, so it wasn’t like tending to the ladies from the Vale or the Reach or any of the other kingdoms. Lady Callianna wasn’t even housed with the others from the Westerlands, which meant that Lady Callianna was the only one that she had to serve for this fortnight. Tending to Lady Callianna was also the easiest assignment, because she mostly took care of everything herself.

As Nadeen pulled on the lady’s door to retrieve her dinner dishes, the door rattled but didn’t open. That wasn’t too unusual. There were times when the lady bolted her door at night, and that was a sign to whoever was serving her that she didn’t want to be disturbed. That just meant that Nadeen would have to collect her dinner dishes before bringing up breakfast, but that was an easy adjustment to make. She smiled to herself as she turned to leave, and she had only taken a few steps when she heard the unmistakable sound of a door creaking open. She looked over her shoulder to see if it was someone else in the hall, despite the fact that the rest of the hall should be empty, and she saw Lady Callianna’s braided blonde hair swing as she leaned her upper body out of her room.

“I’m sorry. Were you trying to collect the dishes?” Lady Callianna asked her. That was another reason that the servants would sometimes argue over whose turn it was to serve Lady Callianna. She was always kind to them, always spoke gently while looking directly at them.

“I did not mean to disturb you,” Nadeen said quietly and dipped her chin.

“You’re fine, honestly. Would it be easier to collect them now or later?” Lady Callianna was already looking at her when Nadeen chanced a glance upwards, and Nadeen knotted her fingers together as she tried to decide the best way to answer.

“Whichever way you prefer, my lady,” she settled on. To her surprise, the lady stepped fully out into the hall and took a few steps towards her. Despite serving her for a couple of days now, Nadeen was still surprised to see the highborn lady in breeches and a tunic.

“It’s Nadeen, isn’t it? Did I remember it correctly? Jayla said that was your name,” Lady Callianna said as she stopped only a step away from where Nadeen was still standing. She knew that Jayla had served Lady Callianna the previous week, but it was rare for a lady to remember a servant’s name. They remembered the names of their handmaidens, of course, but not the servants.

“Yes, my lady,” she said with clear surprise in her tone. Lady Callianna smiled kindly at her, and Nadeen realized that the lady was as tall as most men as she looked up at her.

“I’m not trying to trick you or looking for what you think I want to hear. I want to honestly know, is it easier to get the dishes now or in the morning?” Lady Callianna asked clearly. Nadeen wanted to tell her again that she would do whatever the lady wished, but the lady had made it clear that she wanted an honest answer.

“If I take them to the kitchens now, I won’t have to retrieve them early in the morning and then hurry back with your breakfast,” she heard herself say. Then she went over the words again and quickly added, “Not that it’s any trouble, my lady.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Nadeen. From now on, you can knock if the door is bolted to get the dishes. I don’t want to make your duties more difficult.” The last statement made her feel stunned, and she watched as the lady looked over her shoulder. After a moment, the lady turned again and looked at her with a questioning look.

“Is there anything else you need, my lady?” she asked.

“Did I do something to offend Jayla? Is that why she stopped serving me?” Lady Callianna looked almost upset as she asked the question, as if she was truly worried that she had done something to offend one of her servants.

“We are servants of the Red Keep, my lady. We move around frequently,” Nadeen explained. She didn’t think she would ever have to explain servitude to a highborn lady, but she also hadn’t known that a pillow could be too soft before serving Lady Lysa.

“That sounds awful. Do you like moving around like that?” That wasn’t something that Nadeen had ever really spent time thinking about; this was her life, and it wasn’t going to change.

“I think serving one lady would be different. Possibly better, depending on the lady,” she said a little too honestly. Lady Callianna grinned brilliantly at her, and the torch on the wall highlighted the freckles across her fair skin as she continued to smile.

“I’ve been told that I need a handmaiden. Is that something that you could do? That you would want to do?” the lady asked while still smiling. Again, Nadeen felt stunned at the lady’s words. Lady Callianna wanted her as a handmaiden? As her only handmaiden?

“I would be honored,” she said quickly and grabbed at her dress to drop into a deep curtesy. She heard Lady Callianna say something before hands caught her elbows, and her head raised as Lady Callianna pulled her to stand upright. This close, she could feel the heat from the lady’s skin and felt the rough scratch of the lady’s hands against the bare skin of her upper arms.

“You never have to do that for me, and you don’t have to be my handmaiden if you don’t want to. You can speak honestly with me, without fear of consequences or punishment. Okay?” Lady Callianna had green eyes, a deep and dark color with tiny flecks of gold in the depths. She was a truly beautiful lady, in all ways.

“I would be honored to be _your_ handmaiden, my lady,” she emphasized. She got to see the way that the lady’s eyes widened in surprise, and a slow smile shifted her face as her hands moved down to grip hers. Nadeen never thought that she would have a lady hold onto her hands with such gentle care.

“Then I’ll talk to Lord Tyrion in the morning, and he’ll make sure that everything gets sorted. Now, let’s get those dishes,” Lady Callianna said and then released her.

Nadeen followed after the lady into her room, and she heard quiet singing as she walked inside. Lady Callianna walked straight to her table, and Nadeen meant to keep her eyes forward but found herself looking for the source of the quiet singing instead. On the lady’s bed, she could see two separate forms. The first was a young man, and she recognized him after a moment. Lord Archer, now a squire for the Hound, was stretched out across the lady’s bed fast asleep. He was still fully clothed and on top of the sheets, and she remembered hearing rumors that Lord Archer was like Lady Callianna’s younger brother. Sitting at the end of the bed, Lady Siobhan was singing quietly. When Lady Siobhan looked over her shoulder and met Nadeen’s eyes, she raised a brow and then pointedly looked at where Lady Callianna was carefully stacking her own dishes onto a tray.

“Please, my lady, let me,” she said quickly. She thought Lady Siobhan had smiled for a moment, but the other lady turned away before she could be sure.

“It’s already done,” Lady Callianna told her and held out the tray. The dishes were stacked perfectly, so that nothing would fall as she walked down the stairs, and she looked up to meet the lady’s eyes.

“Thank you, my lady.” Nadeen wasn’t sure if she was thanking her for the tray or for wanting her as a handmaiden, and she thought it was more likely that she was expressing gratitude for both.

“Thank you,” the lady said and started to walk her towards the door. “Starting tomorrow, once you’re my handmaiden, you don’t have to call me that anymore. Callianna is fine.”

“I’m not sure if I can do that, but I can try,” she promised. Lady Callianna smiled at her again as Nadeen stepped through the door, and she felt herself tentatively smile back.

“Goodnight, Nadeen.”

“Sleep well, my lady.”

The door only closed after she had taken a step away, and she felt like she was walking on air as she walked through the hall. Handmaidens were considered above servants, and she never thought that she would be a lady’s handmaiden. Not just any lady’s handmaiden either. Lady Callianna wanted her to be her handmaiden, and Nadeen knew that Lady Callianna was a good person. She knew that she would be treated fairly, kindly. She wouldn’t have to share a single room with seven other women anymore, and she wouldn’t have to serve any of the other ladies. Wouldn’t have to be yelled at for not finishing a task quickly enough, and she didn’t think that Lady Callianna would ever have her whipped for incompetence. The lady had just told her that she wouldn’t have to address her properly, so surely that meant she wouldn’t regularly punish her. Nadeen couldn’t wait to tell the other servants, and she hurried her steps as she thought favorably about her future.

**CALLI**

“Finally taking my advice?” Siobhan asked in a near whisper. Calli carefully slid onto her bed again, and she had just gotten settled with her back against the headboard when Archer shifted closer and placed his head in her lap. On instinct, she reached down and started to run her fingers through his unbound hair.

“About getting a handmaiden? Yes,” she answered with a smile. She had liked the first servant who had come to her room, but the girl had moved so quickly and quietly that Calli never even learned her name. Then there had been Jayla, and the older woman had been unfailingly polite but had looked at her clothes with something close to disapproval. Her newest servant, Nadeen, was quiet but respectful. Calli had also caught her looking around at everything curiously, and the girl actually smiled and would meet Calli’s eyes most of the time.

“She seems like a nice girl. Keeta has been with me since I was sent here, and I’d be lost without her. Literally. That woman knows everything about everyone,” Siobhan said and looked down. Her dark eyes were watching the way that Calli’s fingers moved through Archer’s hair, and Calli couldn’t understand the slightly sad look in her eyes.

“Is something wrong?” she questioned. The three of them had talked out possible plans and strategies for what felt like hours, until Archer had stretched out and fallen asleep, and the best they had come up with was to just follow their instincts. So was she worrying about the future?

“My brothers are thirteen and eleven now, but I’ve never had with them what you have with Archer.” Before Calli could say anything, Siobhan continued. “I know that my mother and Ezarah are afraid of me, even if they’ve never said it, and that’s why I kept my distance.”

“They shouldn’t be afraid of you,” Calli said quietly. The same thing had been true in their other life; Siobhan had told her once that she knew her mother loved her and that Ezra had even thanked her for killing his brother, but they had both been wary of her since they knew the truth of what happened.

“Remember when we first met in the other life? In the gym?” Siobhan suddenly asked. The topic change confused her, but Calli thought back anyway. At fourteen, she had been cleaning the gym for cash under the table. Siobhan had walked in one day with her head held high like she owned the place and looked Jonesy right in the eye as she told him that she wanted someone to teach her how to fight. Calli, half-starved and hiding bruises under her baggy clothes, had laughed.

“Like it happened yesterday,” Calli told her.

“I thought you were weak, at first. Not just physically, even though you were so thin that a light breeze could have knocked you over. You were always smiling and always so _nice_ , to everyone. You talked to everyone like they were the only ones in the room, and I thought you were weak and stupid because of that kindness. Because life isn’t kind,” Siobhan said and finally looked into her eyes. Calli wasn’t really sure what to say, but she wasn’t exactly surprised. Even at fourteen, Siobhan had never hesitated to point out when she thought that Calli was being naïve or foolish.

“You told me once that I was a clueless child that didn’t know any better,” Calli remembered.

“Then I walked in on you in the locker room. Those bruises all over your body, skinny enough that I could count your ribs, and then you turned towards me. That scar across your chest, it looked like someone had scooped out your skin.” Siobhan’s eyes darted downwards, and Calli followed her gaze. Her tunic was loose enough to expose the upper part of her chest, and her earliest scar started just below her right collarbone. It had paled over the years, into a shiny white, but the scar itself was still sunken in.

“When you asked what happened, I told you. It was the first time I ever said the words out loud. A man tried to kill me, so I killed him,” she repeated. Police had questioned her at the time, of course, but she had only been seven. The incident had gone into her files, and foster parents had questioned her but never received an answer. Siobhan was the first person she ever actually told.

“That was the first time I felt like I wasn’t alone. No one ever wanted to talk about what my father had done, about the abuse or even about his death, and it felt like I was left on my own. Like no one else could ever understand, but there you were.” Siobhan laughed quietly, but it was such a sad sound that Calli wanted to reach out to her. “That night, after I sat at the farthest end of my cousin’s dinner table and then went up to my room at the very end of the hall away from the children, I cried for the first time in years. I kept seeing your bruises; the rings around your arms that came from hands, that ugly green color against your ribs in the shape of a boot, and the purple stripes across your stomach. You were suffering through what I had, but you kept smiling. You were still kind, and I realized that I was the weak and stupid one.”

“You have never been weak or stupid,” Calli defended. Only one of her foster families had been horribly abusive, and she had only lived with them for a little over a year. Siobhan had been raised by an abusive father, had grown up only knowing fear and pain until she fought back, and there was no way to compare the two.

“I was, because I didn’t realize that kindness could be strength. You taught me that, and I’m going to remember that when I’m with Daenerys. I’m going to try to teach her the same thing, because I want things to change.”

“So do I,” Calli told her. Already, it felt like things were shifting. They were limited on what they could do, but she really hoped that they would be able to change enough to create a better ending. She was pulled from her thoughts as Siobhan shifted, and she knew that her friend was uncomfortable after being so honest. Siobhan was always an honest person, but she wasn’t usually the type to talk about her personal life. Definitely not about her past.

“Can you remember any other changes?” Siobhan asked. They had covered all of the big things, like the characters that hadn’t existed in the show or even in the books, and Calli carefully sorted through her memories. There was one personal change, but she hadn’t mentioned it because it hadn’t really been relevant. It would probably lighten the mood though, so she smiled a little as she felt heat starting to creep into her cheeks.

“In this life, I’ve kept myself pure as a way of being a proper lady in at least one regard,” Calli admitted. Siobhan’s eyes widened at first but then squinted into nearly closing as she clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. Archer shifted at the sound but didn’t wake, and Calli resumed moving her fingers through his hair as she watched Siobhan struggle not to laugh out loud.

“You’re still a virgin?” Siobhan whispered. Calli groaned quietly while nodding, and Siobhan continued to grin at her.

“It’s so weird! I remember my horribly awkward first time in our other life,” she started.

“Harry’s younger brother, when you were sixteen?” Siobhan asked. Harry had been a regular at the gym, an Army veteran, and his brother had been eighteen and leaving for the Air Force when Calli met him.

“Joey. He was sweet, but having sex in a car without a backseat was not a good choice for a first time.” This time, a quiet bark of laughter slipped from Siobhan before she could stop herself. Archer grunted and rolled over onto his stomach, but his cheek stayed pressed against her knee so that she could continue to play with his hair. Once he was settled again, Calli looked down the length of her bed at where Siobhan was smiling at her with flushed cheeks. “So I can remember that, and I can remember actually enjoying sex. I have all of those memories, but _this_ body is completely virginal. A few stolen kisses, here and there, but that’s it.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Siobhan sighed.

“What?” Calli asked quickly. She didn’t like the teasing look in Siobhan’s eyes.

“You’re going to have to experience another first time. That’s just awful luck,” Siobhan explained. This time, it was Calli that had to press her free hand against her mouth to stop herself from laughing. Because Siobhan was right. It really was awful luck to have to endure losing her virginity for a second time. Hopefully she could find a way to make it less awkward this time around, and she at least knew how to make sex good now. That would probably help.

“I’m not going to do the noble lady waiting for marriage thing anymore. I’m not going to have time for a marriage with everything that’s going to happen, but I am not going to fight ice zombies as a virgin,” she declared. That was assuming that she survived long enough to fight in that battle, but she was trying to think positively. Planning for success and all that.

“Thankfully, I never bothered with the noble lady thing,” Siobhan said and raised her chin. She held her serious expression for only a moment before they both dissolved into nearly silent giggles, and it felt good to talk about something so silly and frivolous. They were going to deal with a lot of death and hardships in the coming years, so why not talk about their sex lives while they could still have them?

“I know. I can remember all your stories. So many lords and ladies, tsk-tsk,” she said and waved her finger. The disapproving sound only made Siobhan grin wider, and her long hair shifted as she shrugged.

“I am a damaged daughter. I have to take my pleasures where I can find them,” Siobhan teased.

The conversation devolved from there, as the two of them recalled their past exploits. Siobhan could remember similarities of encounters from both lives, and Calli was surprised that she could see parallels as well. The only difference was that she had refused the men and women in this life that she had happily slept with in her other life, while Siobhan hadn’t refused anyone in either life. Siobhan told her that they’d find her someone special for her first time, before Siobhan left for Pentos, and Calli readily agreed. She couldn’t imagine forming a relationship, casual or otherwise, once everything started happening. She also couldn’t imagine going the next ten years without having sex at all, because she wasn’t ready to give up one of life’s simplest pleasures. Still, she didn’t want to have a quickie with someone as her first time. That hadn’t worked out so well the last time she lost her virginity.

So they planned out something a little more fun as Archer slept peacefully, until both of them started to yawn between sentences. Calli reluctantly woke Archer up after Siobhan had stood up, and he sleepily drug himself off of her mattress. After only a moment of thinking, she decided to walk Archer back to his room. He tried to protest but was too sleepy to argue properly, and Siobhan accused her of being a mother hen as the three of them left her room. They parted ways eventually, so that Siobhan could go up to her room, and Archer leaned heavily against her as they walked through the darkened halls together. He told her about how he was excited to start his apprenticeship the next day, and she managed to talk him into coming to her room in the morning before he left for the smith’s shop so that she could do something with his hair. It was nearly to his shoulders, and it didn’t need to hang free while he worked with steel and fire. She got him to agree and then left him at his room, and she smiled at the soft kiss he pressed against her cheek before stumbling into his room to sleep.

The walk back to her room felt like it took forever, and she remembered how active she had been that day as her body started to protest every movement. She knew the next day was going to be difficult, but she was looking forward to it. Archer and Siobhan had both agreed that having a place outside of the city would probably be a good thing, and she trusted Tyrion to find something that would be both beautiful and comfortable. Then there was Nadeen; Calli still didn’t like the thought of having a personal servant, but the girl had looked actually happy about being her handmaiden. At least Calli knew that she would treat the girl well, and maybe she could pay her as well? If not, she could at least set aside money for her. Tomorrow was going to be a good day. All she had to do now was crawl into her bed and get some sleep, and she happily did just that as soon as she reached her room. Maybe, if she was lucky, she would dream about better first times instead of the future that she knew was waiting for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is so much going on in this chapter. I thought about cutting it in half, but I really wanted to have the big important conversation in this chapter. Even though the big conversation is basically: _go with your gut_. As the story progresses, more changes will become obvious and plans will shift. I actually have most of this story planned out, as long as I don’t get a random idea while writing and go off course. In the next chapter, there’s going to be sections written from Archer and Siobhan’s perspectives as well since they’re also main characters. It’s about time to check in with them.
> 
> This story is completely unbeta’d and I’m still adjusting to writing original characters, so any and all thoughts are appreciated. Constructive criticism is good too. Thank you for reading.


	4. Part I - Chapter IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think this is all going to work out,” Callianna told her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a few more new faces in this chapter. I did warn that there were going to be a lot of original characters in this story; I’m trying to introduce them slowly but thoroughly, and these characters will be in the story quite a lot so more will be revealed as the story continues. For this chapter, the new cast includes:
> 
> Ehlena Royce: Caitlin Stasey  
> Mya Stone: Marie Avgeropoulos  
> Garrett: Adam Driver  
> Winnifred: Adrianne Palicki

**CHAPTER IV  
** **NEW PERSPECTIVES**

**TYRION**

The sun had barely risen, and he already felt like he’d had a full day. He had woken early to make sure that Callianna would be ready for the dressmaker, and he had been surprised to find his young ward already awake in her room. She had been wearing a simple gray dress when she greeted him, and it had been a change from her usual attire. The dress itself had been shapeless and the fabric had looked coarse, and he wondered for a moment what she would look like in a nice gown as he had followed her into the room. They had just reached her table when a servant entered the room, and Callianna’s smile had brightened as she saw the servant. She had introduced him to the young woman, _Nadeen_ , and had asked if it was possible for the woman to become her handmaiden. He knew enough about servants to know that they were overseen by one of Cersei’s attendants, but his ward had looked so hopeful that he had promised to speak to the woman immediately. His ward and the young woman had both smiled brightly at him, and they had convinced him to enjoy breakfast first before making the arrangements.

Tyrion had left as soon as he finished eating, and finding the very stern woman hadn’t been difficult. He’d been hopeful that he wouldn’t have to talk to Cersei directly, and his hope had been rewarded. When he told the attendant that his ward wanted one of her servants for a handmaiden, she had simply asked which one. He’d been able to recall the young woman’s name, and the attendant had asked him where he wanted the handmaiden to be placed. He thought then about the manse in the city that they might be moving to and told her that he would make arrangements once he was sure, and she promised to tell Nadeen to report to Callianna at once. So far, his morning was a success. He was on his way now to Callianna’s room again, to give her the good news, and he really wanted her to like the manse if only so he wouldn’t have to climb so many stairs.

“Callianna?” he called out. When he had knocked on her door, it had pushed open and so he had walked inside.

“We’re over here!” She was sitting at the small table, now clean of their breakfast dishes, and she wasn’t alone. She was sitting in her usual chair, and a young man was sitting on the floor at her feet. It took him a moment, but he soon recognized the young Lord Archer. He was sitting with his legs crossed and his spine straight, and Callianna was humming quietly as she twisted his dark hair into a tight braid.

“Good to see you again, Lord Archer,” he greeted. He sat in his usual chair as pale blue eyes looked up at him, and the young man continued to smile even as he winced when his hair was pulled.

“I am sorry that you are having to witness my torture, Lord Tyrion,” he grinned.

“I’m not torturing you. I’m saving you from being set on fire,” Callianna told the young man. Then she looked up and smiled at Tyrion as she explained, “Archer is starting an apprenticeship with the best smith in the city today.”

“Then I do believe that the torture is saving your life,” Tyrion told the young man. He winced again as more of his hair was pulled back, but the young man certainly looked better with more of his face showing. He was a handsome young man, especially with those pale eyes against his tanned skin.

“Hear that? Tyrion thinks I’m right,” Callianna said and glanced across at him. The young man rolled his eyes but remained perfectly still so that he wouldn’t disrupt her, and Tyrion felt privileged at seeing how at ease the two of them were. The two of them had a more genuine bond than Tyrion had ever experienced with Cersei, and they didn’t even share the same blood.

“Why apprentice with a smith?” Tyrion asked the young man. Being a blacksmith wasn’t something that highborn lords did, and he knew that Lord Archer would be the next Lord of Ironrath in the North if his uncle didn’t have sons of his own before dying.

“I know how to use a sword, and that knowledge has kept me alive. I want to know how to make the thing that keeps me alive,” the young man stated. When Tyrion hummed and tried to imagine any other highborn working in a smith, the young man tilted his head to catch Tyrion’s eyes again. “I enjoy understanding how things work, how they’re made, and I like working with my hands. Clegane doesn’t need me day and night, and I don’t like being idle. Doing this will give me purpose.”

“Do you feel that way as well?” Tyrion asked Callianna after a moment. He watched her fingers move as she used a strip of leather to tie off the end of Archer’s hair, and the young man leaned his head back until he could grin up at her. Her hand swept over the top of his head as she returned the smile, and he could easily read the love in her eyes as she looked across at him.

“I do like being able to understand things, and I don’t like being idle. Father never hesitated to put us to work. This past month, I’ve felt almost lazy,” she admitted.

“We needed the time to heal,” Archer reminded her. Callianna’s hand moved down the young man’s arm, and Tyrion could only imagine what his arms looked like under his shirt. So many wounds had been stitched together, and he was lucky to have full use of both arms.

“I know that,” Callianna said quietly. With a quiet sigh, Archer pushed himself to his feet and then rolled his shoulders as he straightened his spine. There were times when Tyrion still thought of him as a boy, he was so young, but he was taller than most men. Tyrion was reminded of that when he had to bend so low to press a kiss against Callianna’s presented cheek.

“I’ll come by later, so you can tell me all about your pretty dresses,” Archer said in a clearly teasing tone. The young man easily danced out of the way of Callianna’s swatting hand, and he noticed that both of them were grinning even as Callianna’s eyes narrowed in a sharp glare.

“You’d best leave now before I have them make a pretty dress for you as well!” she threatened.

“Lord Tyrion,” Archer said with a quick bow. He moved with the ease and grace of a dancer as he immediately straightened, and he blew a kiss to Callianna before ducking around the doorway and leaving. When Tyrion looked back at Callianna, she was looking at the slightly opened doorway with a fond smile.

“Did you have any problems with Nadeen?” Callianna asked and then looked at him.

“No, no problems. Nadeen is your new handmaiden, but I didn’t assign her a room. I didn’t want to move her up here just to move her again if we decide favorably on the manse,” he explained. Her expression turned thoughtful, and he watched the way that she started to fiddle with the fabric over her knees.

“That makes sense.” She must have noticed the way he was looking at her uncharacteristic fiddling, because she smiled and then explained. “I wanted to wear a dress for the tour, to look like a proper lady, but I don’t think my best dress is all that proper.”

“You can wear whatever you want, today and every other day,” he assured her.

“I know, but I thought it might be fun to be a lady sometimes.” Her tone was light, almost like she was teasing herself, and he smiled kindly at her.

“Perhaps the dressmaker will have something you can wear today, if you would like to wear something different,” he said. Her smile brightened at that, and he was surprised again at how easily she smiled.

“Lady Callianna? May I present Master Tobyn?” Nadeen had slipped through the opening of the doorway and was standing just inside the room, and Callianna looked at him in question. Because she had never dealt with anything like this before, and he had met with several tailors over the years. He assumed a dressmaker would be the same.

“Yes, thank you for escorting him, Nadeen,” Tyrion said as he stood up. Callianna followed his example and stood up as well, and Callianna’s new handmaiden opened the door fully so that Master Tobyn and his attendants could enter. The short man walked to him first and bowed his head, and Tyrion reached out to clasp the man’s hands.

“It is wonderful to see you again, Lord Tyrion,” Tobyn said before straightening up. He then turned to Callianna and smiled as he looked her over, and Callianna’s eyes widened as the man grabbed her hands and brought them to his lips. “You are more beautiful than words can express, Lady Callianna.”

“Thank you?” It sounded like she was asking a question as her wide eyes turned to look at him, and Tyrion smiled and shrugged where Tobyn couldn’t see.

“Master Tobyn? We were wondering if you had anything that the lady might be able to wear today?” Tyrion asked him. The man’s pale red hair brushed across his forehead as his head tilted to the side in thought, and he straightened immediately with a loud snap of his fingers. One of his attendants rushed forward, a young woman with several dresses draped over her arm, and Tobyn ran a single finger across the fabrics.

“I remembered your description of the fair lady so I brought along gowns to help her choose styles, colors, and fabrics,” Tobyn explained as he looked through the dresses. The first he pulled from the pile was a deep red, and he held it out in front of Callianna. The dress would obviously be too short on her, and Tobyn turned back to his attendant. The purple dress was the right length but the waistline was too small, and the green dress brought out her eyes but appeared far too large.

“Perhaps the black one?” Tyrion suggested. Tobyn pursed his lips but took the dark dress from his attendant’s arms, and he held it in front of Callianna. The shape and length looked right, but Tyrion knew they wouldn’t know for sure until she tried it on. “Would you like to try it, Callianna?”

“Yes, if that’s alright?” she asked Tobyn.

“Of course, my lady, of course,” he said and held out the dress. Nadeen swept forward to take the dress and then led the way towards Callianna’s dressing screen, and Callianna slowly followed behind her handmaiden with an amused expression. He could hear the two young women whispering and giggling quietly as Callianna changed, and he watched as Tobyn spoke quickly with his attendants.

“I’m not sure if I look right,” Callianna said several minutes later. She was still standing behind her screen, and he watched as Tobyn leaned to the side a little in an effort to see her. “Tyrion? Would you mind coming here?”

He gave Tobyn a tight smile before walking across the room, and he saw Nadeen first when he stepped around the edge of the dressing screen. The handmaiden had been looking over her shoulder, but she quickly stepped to the side when she noticed him. Once she had moved, he had an unimpeded look at Callianna as she slowly turned around. The black dress was made of silk and rustled quietly as she moved, and it looked to be the perfect length. His eyes swept upwards, paused for a moment on the way the dark silk narrowed in at her waist while making a note of the dark sleeves stopping just below her elbows, and then continued up her body. The dress cupped her breasts and showed a modest amount of pale skin, and his eyes quickly looked over the scars on her chest before rising to meet her own worried gaze.

“You look lovely, dear lady,” he told her honestly.

“The other dress covered my chest, and the scars,” Callianna whispered. The scar over the center of her chest, above the line of her cleavage, was still a dark red against her pale skin. The other scar, higher up her chest near her collarbone, was a silvery dent. He realized then that she was embarrassed of her scars, that she didn’t want to wear a dress that would show them. So he stepped closer to her and reached out to take both of her hands, and he waited for her eyes to meet his before speaking.

“You are beautiful,” he started.

“But the scars-”

“Only add to that beauty. They show how strong you are, that you have survived. Never hide your strength,” he finished. Callianna smiled brilliantly for him, despite the tears that clung to her lashes. She looked to Nadeen then, and he could see the handmaiden shifting in the corner of his eye.

“He has quite a way with words,” Nadeen said breathlessly. Callianna laughed then and brushed the tears from her eyes, and her fingers whispered against the silk as she smoothed her hands down the dress.

“It is really soft,” Callianna said and smiled shyly. Tyrion turned to the side and presented his arm, and Callianna stepped forward to tuck her hand into his elbow. He led her away from the dressing screen, and Tobyn applauded as soon as he saw her.

“Absolutely gorgeous, my lady! If I may?” he asked and gestured to the dress. When Callianna nodded, Tyrion stepped away from her. Tobyn moved to the same attendant who had been holding the dresses and started pulling at fabric, and Tyrion watched curiously as he walked over to stand in front of Callianna. He looped a piece of green fabric around her waist and tied a perfect bow over her left hip, and the little bit of color looked excellent against the dark dress.

“Thank you, Master Tobyn.” Callianna said the words easily, and the man looked flustered for a moment at the genuine gratitude but quickly recovered himself.

“Perhaps a necklace as well? Or some bracelets?” Tobyn asked distractedly as he looked her over.

“I don’t own any jewelry,” she informed him. The man looked surprised, and Tyrion felt some surprise but not much. The shapeless dress had been her best one and all her possessions had been in one trunk, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she owned no jewelry. She had been content to spend her days fighting, and knights weren’t known for wearing jewelry.

“Perhaps you can give us some recommendations?” Tyrion asked the man. Tobyn excitedly agreed before asking Callianna if one of his attendants could take her measurements, and Callianna led the woman behind the dressing screen along with Nadeen.

As Callianna’s measurements were taken, Tobyn showed Tyrion several pieces of fabric. Materials, patterns, styles, and a few of his own ideas as he continued. Callianna had already told him that she had no preferences over breakfast, that he understood the latest fashions better than she did, so most of the decisions were his to make. If there was anything made that she didn’t like, she could simply choose not to wear it. He chose only the finest fabrics, after thinking about the coarse material that her grey dress had been made of and because he could still picture her shy smile as she mentioned how soft the black dress was. As for the patterns and styles, he left that to Tobyn to decide. The man had been highly recommended and would know which dresses were more popular, but he did call out to ask Callianna if she wanted any special sigils or anything else particular.

“I don’t think House Banefort’s sigil would make for a pretty dress!” Callianna called back. Tyrion had to think carefully to even remember her house’s sigil, and he had to admit that she had a good point when he remembered the hooded man outlined in flames. He was just about to tell Tobyn that he was done when Callianna called out again, “Maybe I should get a lion so that we can match!”

“A golden lion on the green dress would be lovely and perfectly complement the lady’s eyes,” Tobyn suggested. Tyrion was sure that she had been making a joke, a little harmless teasing, but it wasn’t a necessarily bad idea. House Banefort was sworn to House Lannister, and Callianna was currently his ward. Her wearing a lion sigil wouldn’t be so strange.

“Make that one first,” Tyrion decided. Tobyn dipped his chin with a smile, and the two of them started to discuss jewelry pieces to go with each dress. Tobyn told him that he knew the best jeweler in King’s Landing and would be honored to negotiate on his behalf, and Tyrion agreed to it because the man had good taste and it would save Tyrion a trip. If he wanted, he could always make a separate trip to get something for Callianna personally.

“Do you have any jewelry preferences, my lady?” Tobyn asked.

“I don’t really like rings. Other than that, no,” Callianna answered. Her voice sounded closer and clearer, and Tyrion turned his head to see her standing in front of the dressing screen. She was still in the black dress, but her hair was loose and free around her. She was looking directly at Tobyn, and the man smiled serenely at her. Until she asked, “Can I have some dresses made for my handmaiden as well? She only has a few ill-fitting dresses, and I would like her to be more comfortable.”

“My lady, I-”

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to make some dresses for Nadeen. Wouldn’t you, Master Tobyn?” Tyrion asked while discreetly patting the pouch of gold on his belt where Callianna couldn’t see. Tobyn understood the gesture and bowed his head, and he told his attendant to take Nadeen’s measurements at once.

“Thank you, Master Tobyn, for everything. You’ve been a great help to us,” Callianna told him. This time, the man smiled before bowing his head for her. While they waited for Nadeen to be measured, Tobyn told Callianna what they had decided on for her new wardrobe. She smiled throughout the telling and didn’t protest anything, and he noticed that most of her smiles were directed at him rather than the dressmaker. Thankfully though, it wasn’t long before Nadeen and Tobyn’s attendant stepped out from behind the dressing screen.

Tobyn promised to have the first dresses delivered within a fortnight, and Tyrion escorted the man and all of his attendants from Callianna’s room. After they were gone and the door was closed behind them, he let out a quiet sigh and then turned around. Callianna was sitting at the table again, and Nadeen was standing behind her to carefully brush out her long hair. The handmaiden had a soft smile on her face as well as dark spots of color in her cheeks, and he could only imagine that she was just as baffled as he was at Callianna’s request. It wasn’t unheard of for a lady to have clothes made for their handmaidens, but those clothes were usually made by simple dressmakers and weren’t usually tailored specifically. Callianna was a kind woman though, and Tyrion didn’t want to disrupt that kindness. He could afford a few more dresses.

“You’re both going to be the most beautiful ladies in King’s Landing,” Tyrion told them as he sat down once more. Nadeen grinned but immediately looked down, while Callianna met his eyes and let herself grin widely.

“All thanks to you,” Callianna told him.

They talked about their tour of the manse after that, and she confessed that she wouldn’t mind living outside of the Red Keep. She told him that even now, after a full month had passed, the Red Keep still didn’t feel like a home. It was something that he could understand. The palace was large and filled with so many people, and she had just come from living in a small home with only her father and the young man that she considered a brother. The manse would be bigger than that, of course, but it would certainly be smaller than a palace. Perhaps, it would feel more like a home for both of them. A home that he could share with his ward, where they could fully be at ease and relax away from the headaches that living so close to court could bring. Callianna would only have her new handmaiden and maybe he would only bring along a servant or two, and he found himself hoping that they would both like the manse.

“Done, my lady,” Nadeen announced. Callianna’s hair had mostly been put up, in a carefully intricate braid held above her neck, with a single lock of hair falling against her right cheek.

“Thank you, Nadeen. While I’m gone, you’re free to do as you wish. Tonight at dinner, I’ll let you know if we’re staying here at the palace or moving to a manse in the city,” Callianna said as she got to her feet. Nadeen hurried over with a pair of hard-bottomed sandals, and Callianna took them with a smile before bending over to slip her feet into them.

“Understood, my lady,” Nadeen said and bowed her head when she stood up. Callianna was already walking deeper into her room, but her voice carried as she moved around.

“I told you, you don’t have to keep addressing me that way. I’m sure saying it over and over gets tiresome,” Callianna said as she gathered up something. Tyrion remained in his seat as he watched her move, and she stopped next to the table with something clutched in her hand.

“I’m afraid it’s a hard habit to break, my-Callianna,” Nadeen quickly corrected. Callianna had raised one leg to rest her foot in her chair, and his head tilted to the side as he watched her hike the skirt of her dress up to her knee. She wrapped what looked like a small leather belt around her leg, halfway between her knee and ankle, and he recognized the small sheath attached to the leather. Just as he recognized the ring at the end of the hilt that he could clearly see now.

“Dress or not, I’m always armed,” Callianna told him. She must have noticed his curious look, and she winked at him before lowering her foot and letting her dress fall. It was impossible to tell that she had a small knife strapped to her leg, and he didn’t blame her for wanting to be prepared. Not after what had happened in the gardens with Lady Siobhan.

“A wise choice, dear lady,” he said as he got to his feet. He turned to face towards Nadeen, and the young woman dipped her chin but slowly lifted her gaze to his as if testing his demeanor towards her. In answer, he dipped himself into a bow and smiled up at her. “Enjoy your day, Nadeen.”

“Yes, thank you, Lord Tyrion,” she rushed out. He watched as Callianna reached out to gently squeeze the young woman’s hand and then she was walking towards him. Just as he had earlier, he turned to the side and offered his arm. She easily tucked her hand into the bend of his arm with a smile, and he escorted her from the room so that they could continue their day.

**ARCHER**

“What happened to your head?” Archer heard as he stepped out into the sunshine. Further out, he could see Prince Joffrey talking with several other boys close to his age. Clegane was standing just outside of the archway that Archer had stepped through, and he stopped as he craned his head back to look at the side of Clegane’s face. Because the man was looking out at Joffrey, but he must have at least glanced at Archer if he was asking about his new hairdo.

“Lady Callianna helped me with it, so that I won’t accidentally set myself on fire,” he explained. He knew that his hair was too long and that he would benefit from a haircut, but he liked it long. Even if having Calli pull on it as she braided it had hurt something awful.

“Should get rid of it,” Clegane told him. Archer had noticed, after spending a month in the man’s company, that Clegane spoke more whenever he wasn’t looking directly at whoever he was talking to. The man also had amazing situational awareness, borderline supernatural awareness, because he would relax even more if Archer wasn’t looking at him as well. So Archer turned and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the much taller man.

“Northerners wear their hair long. I might live here now, but I will always be a man of the North,” Archer stated simply. To his surprise, Clegane pulled an apple from inside his vest and passed it over. As Archer raised the apple to his lips to take a bite, Clegane pulled out a second apple for himself. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Clegane was always randomly handing him food. He knew that Clegane felt responsible for him, but it was clear that the man had no idea what that meant. So he compensated by constantly feeding him, not that Archer was complaining. Especially when Clegane dropped whole chickens in front of him.

“You want to return to the North.” The words were flat, but Archer was learning how to read Clegane. Despite the lack of inflection, Clegane was asking him a question.

“One day, perhaps. For now, my place is here,” Archer told him. He knew that Siobhan would leave them first, and he would miss her. For all their arguments and fights, he loved her. Then there would come a time that he would have to leave Calli, and he wasn’t looking forward to that. Because Calli had been the first person to ever want him. His grandmother had loved him, had told him as much, but she had raised him because it was the right thing to do. Even Ser Ivan only came to get him because Archer’s father had been his childhood friend. Calli had been the first person to ever love him without obligation, and he would always love her for that.

“As a little lordling playing as a smith,” Clegane huffed.

“Would you rather I stay here and wipe your ass?” he asked and took another large bite of his apple. He could feel Clegane’s eyes on the side of his face but resisted the urge to turn his head to look, and he heard the rough push of air that served as Clegane’s usual laugh.

“Run along, little lord,” the large man grunted. Archer raised his half-eaten apple in a wave as he started to walk, and he made sure to avoid Joffrey’s sight as he made his way out of the Red Keep. The prince was fourteen, only two years younger than Archer himself, but it was difficult to think of them as anything close to peers. Also, Archer didn’t like the way that the prince looked at him. Like he wanted to dissect him or something. It was unnerving.

Archer hummed as he walked down the streets, after he had finished off the apple, and he watched as the people of King’s Landing went about their lives. Sometimes his hair would pull a little whenever he turned his head a certain way, and it reminded him of Calli. He knew that he needed a haircut, that long hair could be a hindrance in a fight, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He also knew that as much as she teased, Calli would never insist on him cutting it either. Because while nothing too horribly traumatic had happened in this life, his previous life had left him with a few hang-ups about his hair.

When he had arrived at Calli’s small apartment at thirteen, with a deep ache in the pit of his stomach and a woolen cap pulled tight over his head despite the summer heat, he had been expecting more of the same. Calli was nothing like his first foster family though, because she had been alone. No partner and no other children, just a tall blonde in a small apartment. She had taken one look at him standing in her immaculate kitchen that smelled like lemons and bleach, holding a garbage bag with his only clothes, and had somehow managed to rush his caseworker out of the apartment. She had made him two stacked sandwiches to eat on while she cooked a large pot of spaghetti, and she didn’t mention his swollen eye or the fact that he couldn’t raise his left arm high enough to bring a sandwich to his mouth. He knew the caseworker had already told her about the _incident_ with his former foster home, and he had expected her to ask questions. To find out what he did to cause the man to beat him so badly.

That first night, the only question that Calli asked him was if he wanted to take a shower before going to bed. There had only been one bathroom in the apartment, but they each had their own bedroom. He didn’t have to share his room with others, and he hadn’t even been able to look her in the eye before going into his new room. He slept for twenty hours and only woke up because he was hungry again, and she had cooked breakfast at midnight. As she scrambled eggs, she started talking about her foster homes. Sixteen different homes, different families, in eleven years. Some had been nice, she told him, while most of them had just been neglectful. She told him that when she was fourteen, she lived in a home with seven other children and that she’d been the oldest. As she sat a plate in front of him, she told him that she’d taken the beatings for all the kids from both foster parents. The father had favored a belt, while the mother had favored thick boots.

It was an entire week before he finally removed his hat. They’d been in the kitchen then too, eating poptarts of all things, and Calli’s eyes had barely been open because she’d worked the nightshift at a twenty-four hour gas station the night before. Her eyes had been hazy as she looked at his head, at the thick stitches across his scalp from where a sharpened knife had removed his hair, and he had looked away from her then. He didn’t tell her all the things that his foster father had yelled as he cut away his too long hair, but he had heard the words repeating as he looked at the colorful sprinkles across white frosting and listened as her chair scraped across the floor. He thought that she would leave the room, but she had surprised him. Had sat on top of the table next to him and circled her arms around his shoulders so that she could pull him close, and he didn’t realize that he had started crying until his head was cradled in her lap. Her fingers had brushed against the back of his head and swept down his neck, rubbed soothingly behind his ears, and she had started to hum quietly as she comforted him.

He’d still been crying when he admitted why he had been beaten, _said only queers wear their hair long and he wasn’t housing no queer_ , and she had shushed him. She told him that what had been done to him wasn’t his fault. The swollen eye, the broken ribs, the way he’d been nearly scalped. She had held him, told him that he would never be alone again, that she would keep him safe. He hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and he’d felt small as she held him. Like a small child being held in his mother’s arms, and he was sure that was the moment that he started to love her. His own uncle had refused to take him in when his grandmother had passed, and the first family to foster him had beaten him so badly that he hadn’t been able to hide the injuries. Calli had no reason to be kind to him, to comfort him the way she had, but she did.

By that Christmas, he had met Siobhan and had already started to learn how to fight. He’d still been small, arms and legs too skinny, but Siobhan taught him where to hit to make the other person really feel it. Calli fed him and praised him and taught herself to knit so that he could have a hat to match everything he owned. When his hair grew longer and started to cover the ugly twisted scars across his scalp, she would run her fingers through his hair and hum along to whatever Siobhan was singing. The three of them became a family, somehow. Siobhan told him that it was because they were all fighters, that they all knew what it was like to fight to survive, and that none of them had to be alone because they understood one another.

 _“Gods, I’m really going to miss them,”_ he thought as he continued his walk.

He could choose to go with Siobhan. He was a good fighter, Ser Ivan had seen to that, and he would enjoy watching Daenerys rise to power. Before that dreadful last season, she’d been the perfect ruler. Strong and kind. He could serve a woman like that, gladly. He could even stay with Calli, fight by her side as she kept Tyrion safe and alive. Tyrion was a good man and definitely his favorite Lannister, aside from Calli herself in this life, but he didn’t think he’d be able to do much here. Because Tyrion would return to King’s Landing, and there wasn’t anything that he could change here that Calli couldn’t. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to actually help Robb Stark. The way he had died was cruel, even in this reality. If he and the others really were here to stay, as opposed to some kind of shared coma dream, then he wanted to make a difference. He was going to do whatever it took to keep Robb Stark alive.

“Lord Archer?” The voice came from his right, and he came to a stop and turned on his heel to face the source of that voice. Blue eyes, a darker shade than his own, met his instantly.

“You Master Mott’s apprentice?” Archer asked. He knew that he was, because there was no way that he wouldn’t recognize Gendry. He was younger than when he was first seen on the show, he was about a year younger than Archer, but he already looked strong.

“Gendry,” he introduced. Archer did a mental fist-pump but held himself perfectly still, and Gendry shifted on his feet a little as he stood up straighter. He was tall but still shorter than Archer, and thick black hair fell across his forehead as he tilted his head towards the shop behind him. “Master Mott’s expecting you.”

Archer followed Gendry into the shop, and the heat was immediately stifling. He definitely understood why Gendry was wearing a shirt with the sleeves torn off, because Archer suddenly felt like he was suffocating in his long sleeved shirt. The light was dimmer than he’d been expecting as well, and it took him a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he noticed the man studying a blade. He looked up as Gendry walked closer, and the man’s eyes moved past his apprentice to Archer. The older man moved away from the sword and over to where they were standing, and Archer could recognize him better now. Before, with Clegane, they had met out in the bright sunlight. For some reason, the older man looked a bit larger now. Then again, he might have just appeared smaller while standing next to Clegane.

“You still want to learn, my lord?” Mott asked him. This was why Archer preferred Clegane. That man only used titles as insults.

“Yes. Thank you for agreeing to teach me,” he said and dipped his chin. He knew that he didn’t have to, since he was a lord and Mott wasn’t, but he was doing it as a sign of respect. Mott copied the gesture, and his eyes moved to just over Archer’s right shoulder.

“And do you still want to reforge the sword?” Mott was still looking over Archer’s shoulder, so he reached up with his left hand and pulled the greatsword free. The blade of the sword was six feet long and required two hands to wield it, and Archer held it out to Mott with a bright grin.

“I do,” he told the smith. The man’s hand ran down the blade while being careful of the edges, and Archer watched as Gendry leaned down to get a closer look.

“That’s Valyrian steel,” Gendry said in surprise and then looked up.

“Reaver, the ancestral sword of House Forrester. It was passed to me after my father died,” Archer told them. His father had been the second son, but he had been given the sword by his father after showing bravery during Robert’s Rebellion. Archer’s uncle, Rodger, had tried to take the sword back after Archer’s father died. His grandmother had refused, and even Rodger was smart enough not to go against Adeena Forrester while she was living.

“Reforged into two smaller swords?” Mott questioned. He was still looking at the blade, at the pale violet color that seemed to shimmer inside the steel, and Archer reached into the pouch tied to his belt. He pulled a piece of paper free and held it out, and Mott finally looked up to take the paper.

“Into one sword and this,” he said and tapped the paper. Archer didn’t quite have Calli’s artistic skill, but he’d been able to draw out what he wanted well enough.

Calli had a Valyrian sword of her own, average length for a single-handed sword, and then he had his much larger Valyrian sword. It might have been a coincidence, but he doubted it. Siobhan didn’t have any Valyrian steel though, and he wanted her well-armed for when the Great War started. (Because he had to assume that they would all live long enough to fight against the ice zombies.) Siobhan was skilled with a sword, but she wasn’t as good as him or Calli. In their other life, she had taken lessons with a bo staff. He could have had two swords forged, but he wanted to give Siobhan something that she could use well. Not a staff, but a spear would have to be close enough. So he had sketched out a double-ended spear, and he was sure that Reaver was large enough to reforge his new sword and Siobhan’s spear.

“Consider it done, Lord Archer,” Mott said with a tight smile. “While I work, Gendry will start your lessons.”

Archer was glad that he remembered Siobhan complaining about inconsistencies; she hadn’t understood why someone had to be brought to King’s Landing to reforge Ice when Master Mott had the ability to do so, and Archer had remembered that rant when he and Clegane had crossed the smith’s path. He also remembered that reforging Valyrian steel was a well-kept secret, so he knew that he wouldn’t get to see Mott working on the sword or spear. That was alright with him. Mott was the best, and he knew that Reaver was in good hands. So while Mott worked, Archer would spend time with the king’s bastard and learn a new skill. It seemed like a good way to spend his time, for now.

“Ready to begin?” Archer asked Gendry.

“This way, my lord,” Gendry said as he turned around. Yeah, Archer was going to have to put an end to that. He was not going to spend the next however-long being called a lord at the end of every sentence. Still, he grinned as he followed behind Gendry so that they could get started.

**SIOBHAN**

“Lady Siobhan! You are going to be late!” Keeta called out as she rushed into the room. Siobhan held her position as she slowly exhaled, and she twisted her body around to watch as her handmaiden pulled out clothing for her to wear.

“Late?” Siobhan questioned. She was only dressed in a short shift, the white fabric stopped high up on her thighs and left her arms completely bare, and it was loose enough to let her move freely. She might be some highborn lady, but that wasn’t going to stop her from exercising in the morning. Her routine started at around daybreak, and she was just now enjoying a little yoga in the sunshine drifting through her open window.

“Lady Ehlena has already arrived! You know how Lady Lysa can get, and she is not going to like you arriving late after you promised to aid Lady Ehlena!” Keeta yelled as she continued to move.

“You worry too much, kitty,” Siobhan said as she pulled herself upright. Her handmaiden stopped moving long enough to shoot her a fierce glare, and Siobhan was so glad that her handmaiden was so at ease with her. Titles aside, Keeta was very clearly the boss between the two of them.

“Come now, we have to get you dressed. If we hurry, maybe Lady Lysa won’t cause a scene,” Keeta told her.

Siobhan held still as Keeta moved around her, because the woman could get her dressed quicker if Siobhan didn’t try to help. She was quickly stripped, went over with a rough wet cloth, and her nose wrinkled as light perfume was rubbed into her skin. Next came her underclothes and finally a dark blue dress, and it felt like she was struggling to breathe as more fabric surrounded her. Other ladies from the Reach enjoyed wearing loose flowy dresses that showed more skin, but Siobhan had to wear dresses that left her completely covered. Thick white scars streaked down her back, from the nape of her neck and all the way down to her ass, from the broken glass of the window that she had pushed her father out of. If only the fucker hadn’t grabbed her as he fell; she had landed on top of him and survived, but the glass had ripped her back apart. So, open-backed dresses weren’t for her. After the attack in the gardens, she had to wear dresses that fully covered her chest as well. The deep cut that stretched from shoulder to shoulder, just under her collarbones, was still an ugly red color and raised. Of course, that single cut was nothing compared to the multiple cuts that littered her thighs and still ached whenever she moved too much.

“What have you heard about Lady Ehlena?” Siobhan asked after Keeta had started on her hair. She had pulled it up into a sloppy bun before she started exercising, so Keeta was having to forcefully comb the tangles out.

“Not much. This is the first time that her father has allowed her to leave the Vale. I hope she’s interesting,” Keeta said with a wistful sigh.

“Don’t you ever get tired of gossip?” Siobhan teased.

“Never.” The single word was followed by a harder pull of the comb, and Siobhan winced but didn’t complain. She knew that her naturally curly hair could be unruly, and she didn’t envy Keeta for having to deal with it.

As Keeta continued her work, Siobhan thought over what she had learned the previous night. In her other life, she had enjoyed writing about a Baratheon brother. Now, according to Archer, one existed in this reality. Archer had written about a Royce daughter, someone that Calli had met, and who was now in King’s Landing. She knew that all of it had to mean something. Maybe the three of them were here to change things, and maybe their very existence in this reality was already causing things to change. It seemed like little things so far, but even the smallest pebbles could cause large ripples. Whatever the changes were, she was going to keep her plans. She would enjoy her time in King’s Landing, with Calli and Archer, but she was still going to leave in a year.

“No jewelry today,” she decided. She already felt weighed down, and she didn’t need some more shiny baubles to add to that weight. Keeta finished with her hair, the curls had been tamed into a beautifully intricate up-do, and then quickly moved to find her shoes. The shoes themselves almost reminded her of ballet slippers; silk tied around her ankles with hard bottoms, but they looked like plain slippers.

“Beautiful, as always,” Keeta declared once Siobhan was standing. She was fully dressed and ready to face the day, but there was one small thing that was missing. Keeta seemed to realize at the same time, because she snapped her fingers and then rushed over to the small table next to the bed. When she came back, she was carrying a leather garter with a dagger already strapped to it.

“I would be lost without you,” Siobhan said as she took the strip of leather. As she bent down, she pulled her skirt up so she could belt the leather around her lower leg. She used to wear a dagger on each leg, but she had given her other leather garter to Calli now that she was going to have to wear dresses from time to time. They’d both decided to always be armed, even while just walking around the Red Keep.

“None of that. I am the lucky one. Imagine if I had to serve someone like Lady Lysa,” Keeta said with a delicate shiver. Siobhan stepped forward and gently cupped the woman’s face in her hands, and Keeta smiled as she raised one hand to press against hers. Siobhan was considered tall for a woman, even if she was a couple of inches shorter than Calli, and she felt like she towered over her smaller handmaiden. Especially when they stood toe-to-toe like this.

“One day, you will never have to serve again. You will be free,” Siobhan promised her. She already had pouches of gold hidden throughout her room, and half of it was going to Keeta when Siobhan left. Her handmaiden deserved a better life, and she was going to make sure that she got it.

“Serving you is not a hardship. When I am with you, I am free,” Keeta said kindly. Siobhan didn’t argue the point; she held Keeta’s face as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and Keeta smiled brilliantly as Siobhan stepped back.

“Do whatever you want today. I can handle Lady Lysa and Lady Ehlena on my own,” Siobhan decided. She knew some ladies that always kept their handmaidens close, that had them shadow their every step, but Siobhan had never been like that. So she stepped away from her handmaiden and walked towards the door, but she paused after opening it and looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps you can find Nadeen.”

“Nadeen? The servant girl?” Keeta asked curiously.

“Yes, she is Callianna’s new handmaiden. I’m sure it’s quite a change for her, and I imagine she could use a kind ear,” Siobhan said with a smile. Keeta was already smiling with a bright look in her eyes, because the woman loved getting into other people’s business. Siobhan was also sure that Keeta could give Nadeen some good advice about attending to a woman like Calli.

“I’ll do that. Have a good day, Lady Siobhan.”

“Good day, kitty,” she replied and walked out into the hall.

Siobhan was housed along with the others from the Reach, but she was in the room furthest from the others. Not that there were too many ladies from the Reach at the capitol, but there were enough. Most of the ladies of the court came from the Westerlands and the Stormlands, a few from the Riverlands, even fewer from the Vale, and none from the North. The only Northern ladies at court were married to lords from other kingdoms, and there weren’t any Dornish ladies at court either. It was interesting, to see who was where, but it didn’t matter much. Siobhan rarely spent time with any of the other ladies, and they kept their distance as well. No one was unkind to her, everyone was always polite, but no one sought out her company. The only highborn lady that she had ever enjoyed being around was Calli, and Calli was definitely an outlier. She suspected that was why Lady Lysa had requested her to meet with Lady Ehlena and get her settled. It wasn’t like she was going to have any other plans.

She made her way up several stairs, to a cavernous chamber in one of the towers where Lady Lysa liked to entertain, and she could hear voices coming from inside the room before she ever reached the door. A servant girl was standing outside the door, and Siobhan caught the miserable look on the girl’s face before she could hide it. Her expression quickly blanked though, and she bowed her head as she opened the door. Siobhan stepped inside and quickly looked around, and she made note of the ladies already sitting inside. Most were from the Vale, but she saw a few young women from the Reach as well. Lady Lysa was sitting in a cushioned chair with Robin curled up in her lap, and two young women were standing in front of her. Their backs were to Siobhan, but she was sure that one of them had to be Lady Ehlena.

“Lady Siobhan! So good of you to join us!” Lysa called out. The two women standing in front of her turned around, and Siobhan didn’t recognize either of them.

“Apologies for my lateness, Lady Lysa,” she said and forced herself into a curtesy. She kept her eyes on the two women she didn’t know, and she didn’t know enough about Ehlena to guess which one was her. Both women were dressed similarly, in pale blue dresses, and their hair was even styled the same.

“Never mind that. Come and meet Lady Ehlena,” Lysa said and waved a hand. Siobhan stepped farther into the room, and both of the young women were watching her with open curiosity. The one with black hair was perhaps even taller than her, though not quite as tall as Calli, while the woman with light brown hair had to barely be five feet tall.

“Lady Siobhan, it is an honor to meet you,” the shorter woman said and stepped forwards. She dropped into a small curtesy, so she had to be Lady Ehlena. She straightened up with a smile, and her head tilted back in the direction of the other woman. She introduced her as, “My handmaiden, Mya Stone.”

“The honor is mine,” Siobhan told them both. Her voice sounded steady, but it sounded like there was static in her head. Now that she knew, she could see the slight similarities. The thick black hair and dark blue eyes, along with her height, marked her as a Baratheon. She clearly wasn’t the same Mya Stone from the books though. Her hair was long instead of short, and she was dressed the same as a highborn lady and not like a handmaiden. Not like an unclaimed bastard, either.

“Lady Lysa says that you can show us the Red Keep?” Ehlena asked and glanced over at Lysa.

“Of course she can. Isn’t that right, Lady Siobhan?” Lysa asked her. It was phrased as a question, but Siobhan knew that it was more like an order. Because while Siobhan was a highborn lady, Lysa was married to the Lord of the Vale. In other words, Lysa outranked Siobhan.

“We can start whenever you’re ready,” Siobhan told Ehlena.

“Excellent! I’m eager to see everything,” Ehlena said and stepped forwards. Siobhan tensed a little as the young woman immediately linked their arms together, but she quickly relaxed and started to lead the way out of the room. She noticed Mya walking along behind them, but her steps were light and she kept her eyes down.

“Where would you like to start?” Siobhan asked as they walked down from the top of the tower. She turned to watch as Ehlena looked all around them, as if checking to see if anyone else was around, and she was surprised to hear the young woman let out a long relieved sigh after discovering they were alone as they walked.

“One more moment in that room would have driven me insane, and the next lady to call Mya a bastard was going to be thrown from the window,” Ehlena viciously stated. Siobhan’s quiet laugh was shocked out of her, because that certainly wasn’t what she had been expecting.

“But I am a bastard,” Mya said from behind them. When Siobhan glanced over her shoulder, the woman was smiling as she continued to look at the ground.

“You are not exempt from my threat.” Ehlena shook her head, causing her mostly unbound hair to sway across her shoulders, and then brown eyes equally as dark as Siobhan’s own were looking up at her. “You’re nothing like those other ladies, are you? You’re different.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, my lady,” Siobhan told her. Those dark eyes continued to peer up at her as they started down a hallway, and it was a little unnerving that she couldn’t hear Mya’s footsteps against the stones. How could she walk so silently?

“You were attacked, not even a month ago, but you’re still here. Any other lady would have returned home, or would at least keep an armed guard nearby. Not you though. All of the rumors say that you are different. That’s why I asked for you. Well, one of the reasons,” Ehlena said as they walked.

“You asked for me?” Siobhan heard herself ask. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“I’ve known the other ladies of the Vale my entire life, and they’re all very boring. I didn’t travel all this way just to sit around and be bored with them,” Ehlena explained.

“So you asked for me because of the rumors about me?” Siobhan asked. She knew that people gossiped about her, about what she might have done to her father and definitely about his abusive nature, but no one had ever admitted it to her face.

“I wanted to meet you for myself. The rumors say that you’re terrifying, but I think you’re quite beautiful.” Ehlena’s quick sweep over Siobhan’s body wasn’t subtle at all, and she found herself smiling at the bold young woman.

“Even beautiful things can be terrifying,” Mya said. Ehlena hummed thoughtfully but didn’t reply, and Siobhan led them out into the sunshine. Towards the gardens. Her arm was still linked through Ehlena’s, and she could see Mya trailing behind them from the corner of her eye when she looked down at Ehlena.

“What’s the other reason you asked for me?” she asked as they started through the gardens. Ehlena looked up at her, and the playful expression from earlier was gone now.

“The night you were attacked, two others saved you. Lord Archer Forrester and Lady Callianna Banefort. Unless the gossip is wrong?” Ehlena asked.

“The gossip is right this time. They were both with me and fought off the attackers.” Siobhan had gone over that night countless times, and she still blamed herself for the attack. She was the one who had refused the lord’s offer of marriage, and she had known that he had a temper. She never should have walked around unarmed, and Calli and Archer had nearly been killed as well.

“Killed the attackers, you mean,” Ehlena corrected.

“Be polite,” Mya admonished quietly. Their relationship seemed more like the one that Siobhan had with Keeta, something closer to friendship than plain servitude.

“I think Lady Siobhan prefers honesty over politeness, or am I wrong?” Ehlena asked her.

“Honesty, always,” she replied. It was one of the things that she loved most about Calli and Archer. Both of them were honest, even if Calli did try to be a little nicer about it.

“It’s the same for me, which is why I’m going to be honest now. When I heard what had happened, I remembered the name Callianna and the name Banefort. Of course, I remember a girl named Callianna Hill who was traveling with a Ser Ivan Banefort. They passed through the Vale years ago, but I enjoyed Callianna while she was there. Besides Mya, she was the only girl I’d ever met who didn’t bother with being proper.” Ehlena waved her free arm as she talked, hand moving gracefully through the air, and the gestures made her think of Calli.

“Mya seems proper to me,” Siobhan said with another glance over her shoulder. Mya looked up and smiled at her, but she didn’t reply.

“Don’t let the dress fool you. She’s quite skilled with a blade,” Ehlena told her with a wide grin. Then her head tilted upwards as she asked, “Is the Callianna that I remember the same one that killed those men?”

“She is. She was born as Ser Ivan Banefort’s bastard, but he had her named as his trueborn daughter. She’s a good friend of mine, and I’ve already arranged for us to enjoy our midday meal with her tomorrow. If that’s something you want?” Siobhan asked.

“Sounds delightful! For today, I want to learn everything there is to know about you,” Ehlena said as she pressed closer against her side. Siobhan heard Mya laugh quietly for a moment, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She had been hoping for something to break up the monotony of her days, and it looked like the gods had sent her Ehlena Royce and Mya Stone.

**CALLI**

“Lord Tyrion! Lady Callianna!” a man called out. As they approached closer, the older man bent into a low bow. No matter how many times it happened, she still thought it was odd. She had never felt like someone that had to be bowed to, not even after being claimed as a highborn’s daughter, and she made sure to keep her smile gentle as the man straightened.

“Lord Mylan, good to see you again,” Tyrion greeted. He was older, with gray starting to show at the temples of his dark hair, but he seemed like he was still in good health. As they got closer, she noticed the faint laugh lines around his eyes and mouth.

“You as well. I am hoping today will be fortuitous for both of us, because I am eager to join my family,” the man said once they were standing in front of him.

“They’ve already left for the Riverlands?” she asked him. She remembered Tyrion saying that the manse was available because the people who lived in it were moving to the Riverlands, but wouldn’t they wait until someone else had claimed the manse before leaving?

“My wife was eager to get the children and the keep settled,” he explained. He then turned to the side and gestured at the large iron gate with one arm as he asked, “Are you ready to see inside?”

“I believe we are,” Tyrion answered for them both. The man, Mylan, opened the iron gate and led the way inside. There was a stone walkway framed on either side by beautiful gardens, and she followed along behind Mylan and Tyrion as she took everything in. The flowers were in full bloom, bright and beautiful, and there were even a few small trees around the perimeter close to where the iron gate lined the manse’s land.

The walkway ended at a large stone archway, and she tipped her head to the side as they passed through it. The entire manse was in the shape of a rectangle with the center scooped out, and her eyes moved across the open courtyard. It was all stone, and there was even a beautiful fountain in the center of the courtyard. She could see doorways on her left and right, and she listened with half of an ear as Mylan explained. The doorway on the right led into a large library, while the three smaller doorways on the left each led into a different bedroom for the servants. As they moved around the fountain and continued forward, her gaze skipped upwards. The manse definitely had two floors, but it didn’t seem to be overly large like she had feared it would be. The three of them walked up a few stairs to the front door, and Tyrion looked over his shoulder to smile up at her as they walked into the foyer.

“The kitchen is to the left, a sitting room to the right, and the dining room is right through here,” Mylan told them. Directly across from the front door was the opening into a very large dining room, and the three of them walked inside.

There was a large fireplace in the center of the back wall, currently unlit, with a large door on either side of it. She followed along through the left door, and she could feel her eyes widening as she took in the expanse of the back garden. It was beautiful, there was so much open space, and a colonnade stretched across the back of the manse. It would offer shade on the hotter days, and there was another fireplace outside that she thought was back-to-back with the fireplace in the dining room. Suddenly, she didn’t even care what the bedrooms looked like. She could already see herself training in the back garden, with swords in her hands and sunlight on her skin. Still, she didn’t say anything as she followed Mylan and Tyrion back inside the manse through the right door this time.

The stairs leading to the upper floor were between the kitchen and the hallway that had the servants’ bedrooms, but the staircase itself was nothing compared to the many staircases around the Red Keep. They were upstairs in only a few seconds, and Mylan explained that the two narrow hallways contained three guest bedrooms apiece. At the front of the manse, there was an open walkway that overlooked the courtyard below. The back hallway of the manse only contained two bedrooms, that Mylan described as the master quarters. The two back bedrooms, that she thought were more like suites going by the quick look she got, each had a doorway that led out onto a large balcony that overlooked the back garden. Mylan led them down the back hallway and then into the second suite, the one farthest from the stairs, and they walked across the bedroom to the door in the back wall. Mylan stood back and let them walk out onto the balcony, and he smiled as he said he would give them some time to talk to one another.

Calli immediately walked to the edge of the balcony and looked down at the garden, and it was just as beautiful from a higher vantage point. She heard Tyrion step up beside her, and the balcony was at a perfect height for him to see over. Together, they looked out behind the manse. A part of her wanted to stay at the Red Keep, to stay as close to Archer and Siobhan as she possibly could, but she could also see herself living here. The manse itself was close to the Red Keep, she could easily walk the distance, and she thought she could be happy here. She thought that Tyrion would be happier here as well, in a place of his own. So she turned to look at him with a hopeful smile, and he looked at her with a nearly identical expression.

“Thoughts?” he asked her.

“Honestly?” When he nodded, she pressed her palms against the low wall of the balcony and leaned her weight against her hands. “I love it. It’s beautiful here.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Tyrion sounded relieved as well, and she turned her hand over to take his when he reached out. Their fingers laced together as they looked out again, and they were still standing in the same position when Mylan joined them. Despite hearing his footsteps, neither of them pulled away.

“Lord Tyrion? Lady Callianna?” Mylan asked quietly. They both turned to look over their shoulders, and Calli squeezed Tyrion’s hand to let him know that he could speak for them.

“I’m afraid you have a long ride ahead of you, Lord Mylan,” Tyrion said in a solemn tone. A smile stole over Mylan’s face as the words registered, and he clapped his hands in obvious joy.

“That is excellent news!” Mylan’s smile dimmed for a moment, and Calli shared a questioning look with Tyrion.

“Is something the matter?” Tyrion asked.

“Before you made your decision, I wanted to ask if you were in need of servants. The keep I am moving to already has servants, and I hate to leave those that served us so well here without a home,” Mylan explained. Tyrion looked up at her, probably because she hadn’t exactly hid the fact that having servants made her a little uncomfortable. She knew that Tyrion was used to having servants though, and having a few servants wouldn’t be like living in a palace full of servants. Right? She had already accepted having a handmaiden. So she nodded her answer and watched as Tyrion looked to Mylan.

“Perhaps we should meet them first?” Tyrion suggested.

“Of course! Right this way,” Mylan said and turned around. Tyrion released her hand to follow after Mylan, and she took one last look at the back garden before walking after them. They walked to the other end of the hallway to the staircase, and then they continued on through the foyer and out into the courtyard.

“Just my luck to be surrounded by the tallest people in King’s Landing,” Tyrion muttered. Calli stopped looking curiously at everything and noticed the two people standing in front of the fountain, and they really were tall. Even compared to her.

“This is Garrett and Winnifred, married for three years now,” Mylan told them as they moved across the courtyard.

As they got closer, she was able to pick out more details about them. The man looked to be about the same height as Archer, a couple of inches over six feet, and his thick black hair was down to his chin. The woman standing next to him looked like she was maybe the same height as Calli, possibly a little taller, and her long dark blonde hair was in a braid similar to the way that Calli liked to wear her hair. They were both dressed in dark trousers and tunics, and they smiled before bowing their heads as the three of them approached. They didn’t seem very old, maybe only a few years older than Calli, and they must have spent quite a bit of time outside because their skin had a healthy glow to it. When they raised their heads, two pairs of dark eyes looked at them.

“Hello, I’m Callianna Banefort,” she said as a way of introduction.

“Garrett.” His voice was low and deep, and there was a single dimple in his cheek when he smiled at her.

“Winnifred.” She mimed a curtesy, and Calli already liked the woman’s slightly husky voice. It reminded her of the woman she’d worked with back in her other life, the one who never complained when Calli asked her to take the nightshift at the gas station.

“This is Tyrion Lannister,” Mylan said last. Tyrion hummed but didn’t say anything, and she noticed the way that the two of them traded nervous looks. Because they still weren’t sure if they were going to be homeless soon.

“I think we should keep them,” she loudly whispered to Tyrion. When he looked up at her in surprise, she lightly shrugged her shoulders. “I’m already bringing Nadeen. Maybe, together, we can be like a family.”

“You’re a strange woman,” Tyrion said after a moment. His tone was fond though and he was smiling, so Calli didn’t take any offense.

“I think you’re a kind woman, my lady,” Winnifred said.

“Oh, neither of you have to call me that. Callianna is fine, or Calli,” she said and made sure to look at them both. They both appeared surprised, but she really hoped that they would both choose not to use her title. Being called _my lady_ over and over became tiresome very quickly.

“Thank you for your kindness, Callianna, my lord,” Garrett said and bowed his head.

“Oh, what the hell. You may call me Tyrion,” he sighed and then grinned up at her. Garrett and Winnifred were both grinning now, and Mylan was looking between all of them with a bemused expression.

“Shall we work out the details?” Mylan asked.

“We shall,” Tyrion declared. Mylan walked back towards the front door, but Tyrion paused to look up at her. “After the details are worked out, perhaps we can discuss our rooms?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she said with a slow nod. She didn’t really care about which room would be hers or about the furnishings, but it really wasn’t fair to keep leaving everything for Tyrion to decide. The man had already decided on a wardrobe of dresses for her.

After Tyrion had walked away with Mylan, Calli turned to face towards Garrett and Winnifred. They were looking at her both expectantly and curiously, probably waiting to see how she would act without an audience. She thought over the tour she had just been given, the quick look at the rooms, and then thought over everything she didn’t know about what was going to be her new home. Which was basically everything. So she looked at the two of them and asked, “Can you show me how everything works here? Take me through your typical day?”

“For what purpose, Callianna?” Winnifred asked her. It wasn’t a refusal. More like a clarification, because she assumed that not many highborns asked about a servant’s typical work day.

“I like understanding how things work,” she explained simply.

“Right this way then.”

**NADEEN**

“Do you ever feel guilty?” Nadeen asked Keeta. The other handmaiden had found her wandering around the battlements of the palace, because she hadn’t known what to do with so much free time. Lady Callianna had left with Lord Tyrion and told her that she was free to do whatever she wished with her day, and she had realized after they were gone that she didn’t know what to do without a day full of duties.

“Guilty about what?” Keeta asked. They were sitting together in the gardens now, away from the others but with a clear look at the entrance to the Red Keep that Lady Callianna liked to use, and Nadeen was watching the way that Keeta carefully braided strips of leather together.

“That we serve such kind ladies when others are so mistreated,” Nadeen explained. Keeta had talked to her at length about how she served Lady Siobhan, and she sounded very similar to Lady Callianna. For one, she insisted on a lack of titles. Keeta told her that she was treated more like a beloved friend than a simple servant, and Keeta said that Callianna was like Siobhan. That she would never be cruel and that she would treat Nadeen well.

“Guilty? No. Sad? Yes.” Keeta placed her hands in her lap and looked to the side, and Nadeen met her pale brown eyes. “I feel lucky to be with Lady Siobhan. Not because she is kind to me, but because she is a good person. I care for her because she cares for me, and I will not feel guilt over that. You shouldn’t either.”

“She’s having the best dressmaker in the city make dresses for me. She treats me like a, like a…hmm,” Nadeen trailed off.

“Like a person?” Keeta suggested. It was an awful thing to think, much less say out loud, but the other woman wasn’t wrong. Servants and even most handmaidens were treated like they were _less than_ , but Callianna had never treated her like that. Of course, she hadn’t been serving the lady for long. What if Lady Callianna was just like the others but better at hiding it? Her stomach turned at the thought, and she quickly pushed it away. She didn’t want to put her beliefs in the possibilities; Lady Callianna had been kind to her, so she had to believe that the lady was always kind.

“Yes, like a person,” Nadeen sighed. She felt fingers drifting across her hand, and she looked down to watch as Keeta wrapped the leather bracelet she’d been making around her wrist. The bracelet itself was made of three leather strips braided together, and the ends of it were carefully tied together as Keeta hummed quietly.

“Lady Callianna was born as a bastard.” Keeta said it so simply, and Nadeen felt her mouth parting in shock even though no sound escaped her. Which was just as well because Keeta continued, “She didn’t become a highborn lady until she was thirteen. Before that, she lived and worked in a tavern. Maybe she was never a servant or a handmaiden, but she knows what it is like to serve others. She is different from the other ladies, and that is a good thing. That means that you are going to be well taken care of and treated like the person that you are. Isn’t that something to rejoice over?”

“It is,” Nadeen decided after a moment. What Keeta said helped to explain why Lady Callianna acted the way she did, both her kindness and the way she seemed to not understand some things that most ladies took for granted.

“Then rejoice and smile for your lady,” Keeta said and looked out ahead of where they were sitting. Callianna was walking towards them, with hair falling around her face, and she smiled brightly once she realized that they were both looking at her.

“Callianna!” At the sound of Nadeen saying her name without a proper title, the lady smiled even brighter and reached for her hands.

“Nadeen! Did you have a good day?” The lady seemed breathless and her skin was flushed, but she appeared happy as she gently held onto Nadeen’s hands.

“I did, thanks to Keeta,” she admitted and started to look over her shoulder. Lady Callianna, who was already a head taller than her, looked up and smiled.

“Thank you, Keeta.” Her voice was full of gratitude, and her smile was soft as she looked at the other handmaiden.

“It was no trouble. Lady Siobhan spent the day entertaining the newest lady from the Vale, so I had plenty of free time,” Keeta said from right next to Nadeen. She must have stood up as well.

“Which reminds me, would you mind telling her that I plan on keeping my promise about tomorrow’s midday meal?” Lady Callianna asked kindly.

“With her and Lady Ehlena?” When Lady Callianna nodded, Nadeen heard Keeta hum quietly again. “Perhaps a nice meal in the gardens. Nadeen and I will see to it.”

“Gladly,” Nadeen said and quickly nodded. Lady Callianna looked almost uncomfortable as she shifted on her feet, and she heard Keeta tsking quietly.

“We have to do something to keep the boredom at bay, so please don’t worry yourself. Now, have a good night,” Keeta told them.

“Goodnight!” Lady Callianna called after Keeta’s retreating figure with Nadeen echoing her. Once Keeta was gone from sight, Callianna turned back to look at her. After a quick moment, she turned and laced her arm through Nadeen’s to lead her out of the gardens.

“How was the manse?” Nadeen decided to ask. Callianna’s face lit up in a smile as she turned to look at her, and it was such a nice look on her as the fading sunlight shone across her face.

“It was beautiful! Absolutely beautiful, and I think that you’ll like it too. Tyrion said it’ll take at least a week before we’re ready to move in, because we have to get new furnishings. We’ll need to go and pick out your room soon too. We’ll have two servants in the home, they worked for the previous family and it seemed wrong to make them leave their home, and their rooms are downstairs. There’s more rooms downstairs and several upstairs, so it’s completely up to you. Am I talking too much?” the lady asked and then finally took a deep breath. She was smiling with a little bit of embarrassment shining in her eyes when she looked over, and Nadeen slowly shook her head.

“You just sound excited, and so am I. I can only ever remember living in the Red Keep,” she admitted.

“The manse will be our home. Mine, yours, Tyrion’s. We’re going to make it a home.” There was an almost wistful edge to the lady’s tone, and Nadeen looked around at the stone hallways. The Red Keep wasn’t really her home. It was where she lived, where she slept and where she did as she was told, but it wasn’t a home. “Which reminds me, are you okay in your current room? Until we can move into the manse?”

“Julianna is anxious to give my bed to another girl, but she understands. Although, I am looking forward to not sharing a room with seven others,” she said. Keeta had told her to be honest with Lady Callianna, that the lady would actually listen to her, and she wanted to be able to speak freely.

“That’s something that I can understand, and I promise that you won’t have to share a room in our home,” Callianna told her.

 _“A room, all to my own,”_ she thought with a smile. They were getting closer to Lady Callianna’s room now, and she knew that it was nearly time to go get the lady’s dinner.

“Would you want to share my room? Until we move? I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but I thought it might be better to share with one person instead of seven,” Callianna said and looked at her. One day, perhaps, Nadeen wouldn’t feel constantly surprised while in the lady’s presence.

“My lady, I-”

“Honest answer only, please.”

“-would greatly appreciate that,” she finished and looked over with a smile of her own. Callianna used their locked arms to pull her closer as they continued to walk, and the lady laughed quietly. No, she needed to stop thinking of her as just another _lady_.

“I think this is all going to work out,” Callianna told her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many things are happening. Archer keeps getting randomly fed by the Hound and has just met Gendry. Siobhan is hanging out with a Royce daughter that shouldn’t exist and a different version of Robert Baratheon’s oldest bastard daughter. Calli and Tyrion are moving to a manse, that I have very loosely based off of Shae’s Manse in the books, along with handmaiden Nadeen. More things are on the way. I’m torn between writing out all of the little things and just skipping right into the juicy stuff. Any thoughts? Thank you for reading.


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